Woohoo! 10 days gone, 4 to go. At least in hard quarantine. After these two weeks, we’ll have to spend another week in “health monitoring”. This will be in another hotel where we are still somewhat restricted, but we will at least be able to leave the room and move freely inside the hotel, go to the hotel restaurant, hotel gym, etc.
Fortunately, up to now, quarantine has really been ok. That has a lot to do with two things. First, that I was allowed to be with Van and Liz in the same room after the first night and second, the fact that we got a very big room, which means we have space to move around and I can work more or less normally without annoying Van and Liz and vice versa.
The entrance, which I use as my work area and where we eatConnection from the entrance to the rest of the room, with a giant window and an awesome view over the Pudong area of ShanghaiAnd this is where we sleep!
And now… some impressions on how we spend our time 🙂
Morning yoga! Which Van is offering via video conference to the rest of the group that is with us in quarantineDrinking loads of good coffee (I came prepared!)…… and then doing the dishes. Yes, this is an activity to spend timeMaking art and decorating the room! And for Liz: running around on the windowsill like a catLooking outside the window while talking to our Lego friends (this is more something Liz is doing, but Van and I are getting there as well)Our weekend activity: 6 hours of Lego building on this super cool set made for Chinese New Year (the year of the Ox)
And for some practical things
Two weeks of being locked up in the room also means no one comes in to clean (and we don’t have the stuff for it). So what the hotel gave us are chlorine pills to throw in the toilet before we flush our deliveries. DE-LI-CIOUS! Just don’t eat them (as apparently, some people have tried or need to be reminded of not to try)Getting our temperature checked twice a day (also to keep contact with the friendly astronauts). I wish I could say “a double temperature check a day keeps boredom away”, but it doesn’t
Besides the above temperature checks, we have also undergone two further corona nose piercing tests. Together with the airport in Germany and the test in Shanghai airport upon arrival that makes 4 now… Only three more to go!
So that’s pretty much how we spend time. That and with reading. Thank god for Kindles!!
Woo-hoooooo!!!!! After a knock on my door and an engrossing dialogue with another suited up astronaut (using some Chinese instantaneous translation app), I understood that I was “liberated” to spend quarantine with Vanessa and Liz!!!! So I packed all my stuff (that I had carefully unpacked the day before) and moved in to Van and Liz’ giant room! Joo-hoo!!!!!
Short version: we left the house in Ludwigshafen on Wednesday 26.05 at 18.08, flew out of Frankfurt to Shanghai, did some Corona and admin stuff along the way and finally arrived in the quarantine hotel in Pudong (district in Shanghai) on Tuesday 27.05 at 19.01. And we’re all fine.
For the slightly longer version… Here are some impressions.
Technically, this didn’t happen on Wednesday, but it serves the purpose. Our house wasn’t ready and empty on Wednesday morning (obviously). Ensue loads of stress, loads of last minute throwing away, last minute putting outside of some furniture (for someone to pick up a few days later :-D), last minute house handover to the renters, last minute car drop off to car company that bought our car…
But hey, our taxi driver was at our place at 17:45 (sharp; he’s German), did his covid Schnelltest and we were ready to leave at 18.08. A very respectable 8 minutes late, only.
Going to the airport by taxi-van: no stress, easy –> Check! No pictures of the more stressy and painful part: getting covid tests the day before at Frankfurt airport to get Green QR codes for China. Painful (nasal swab was deep and long) and stressful (we also had to do a blood test, which was Liz’ first time to give blood –> so there was some crying and some panic, but in the end she was very brave and it all worked out). Result: green QR codes ready!
Liz nervous and not impressed about going to China “why do we have to go?”
Flying: eeeeeaaaaaaassssyyyy like a sunday morning!
Liz excited about flying… some of the nerves already gone and already looking a liiiiittle bit forward to China
And then the arrival in China… A complete Kafka experience going from desk to desk to check pount to check point through the airport, showing QR codes, generating other QR codes, filling out forms, getting tested again. Nasal kind here, no blood: but deeeeeeeeeppppp (including 5 times twisting, letting the swab stick for 15 seconds to really let it soak up properly and then some more twisting. Gotta love it! :-S). And our interactions with local staff: only with completely suited up people. Very weird experience.
First suited up guys entering the plane to “release the cargo”Queue and “show QR code”Liberated by the police (and time for a selfie) 😀 Somehow police in white suits don’t look menacing and actually kind of sweet. More like lab personell
After we were released from the airport: via bus to the quarantine hotel. Bus only for BASF people. Ergo: time for a group picture!
First batch of BASF delegatesSomehow, the German colleagues found the packing of our luggage on the bus “disturbing”… I wonder why
Arrival at the hotel… What do you think? (This post is wrinting itself now) More suited up people, more QR codes, more forms to fill out. But no test (for now)! And then: each to their room “one person, one room” principle. So as I am typing this up, Vanessa and Liz (under 14yrs) are in the room together nextdoors, probably already asleep. The way it seems right now, we might be separated for the next 14 days. But let’s see what happens… The fact they have the room next door and that we can video chat all day via wechat is already a good consolation.
Getting at the quarantine hotelLiz waiting admirably patient, while mama and papa generate QR codes, fill out forms and get explained (in chinese) how we need to chemically clean our toilet after every visit: no room cleaning for 14 days in quarantine!Quarantine “check-in”
And that’s all! We made it all in one piece. Are healthy, had a good flight and got through all the uncomfortable bits. It was just really really really exhausting!!
Now: let boredom begin… While Shanghai waits for us!
And so it starts. Yesterday at 22:30 Van and I looked around the house and realised we had prepared nothing for the move that was starting today 😂 but hey, nothing 7 guys from a german moving company can’t solve. After showing us negative corona tests they entered the house at 9am this morning and subtly pushed us to make decisions fast…
Result: 5 hours later the house is packed, Liz’ library books are in the container for China, the laundry is still in the laundry basket, which is packed and ready for the container, etc… But hey, packed is packed!
En voor de liefhebbers… Giro op de laptop links in het hoekje… Go Remco!
Jan & Van & Liz 