Shanghai Hotel Quarantine Diary: Day 10
7:00am - woke up
7:40am - heard the people place the breakfasts outside. But I’m determined to do my Centr workout - plyometrics today. I decided to try to orient myself towards the window today as much as possible, during the workout. It’s a nice view, that I’ll miss when I go back to my apartment.
8:05am - picked up breakfast. It’s got the daily hard-boiled egg (白煮鸡蛋), and the every-other-day yogurt with no spoon (酸奶). United spoon to the rescue.
Last week, I thought that the three-ingredient spring rolls (三丝春卷) had cabbage, carrot, and bamboo shoot, but I know for sure this time that they had shiitake mushrooms, so I think the three ingredients are shiitake mushrooms, cabbage, and carrot.
Today I got two small purple sweet potatoes (地瓜). Somehow, because the skin looked drier and there were some of those whiskers attached, I did my best to peel the thin skin this time, rather than eating the skin. Still sweet and delicious!
Since it’s Sunday, I wanted to turn my sweets into a separate course, to take with my coffee (Nespresso and coconut creamer). I had my kiwi and mandarin orange from my office care package.
And that delicious brown sugar cake (红糖松糕) with its beguiling chewy texture. Also notice how glossy its top is.
8:14am - call to say we can pick up the breakfast
8:45am - temperature check
9:42am - trash pick up and disinfecting. I liked that this happened in the morning today, instead of the afternoon some days. This guy didn’t enter the bathroom, since I put the trash at the door. And he asked if I only had the one bag of trash next to the waste bin in the bedroom (at the bottom of the picture). Do people usually have more trash?
10:27am - heard the guy with the industrial sprayer hooked to a backpack spraying the hallway.
11:08am - it’s nice that there are still yellow leaves on the gingko trees - a very pretty sight in Shanghai.
11:34am - cleaners cleaned the room across the way. They looked like they were doing a very thorough job, even wiping the front of the cabinet. Strangely, the people across the way moved in two days, but moved to another room yesterday for some reason.
11:53am - open the door to pick up lunch, and catch a glimpse of the room across the way after it’s been cleaned.
Interestingly, in comparing the lunch and dinner from today, compared to last Sunday’s, I noticed that today they put the rice in the middle circular section, while last week the rice was in one of the larger outer compartments!
This time, I liked the ground meat vermicelli (肉末粉丝) much better. I think they cooked the vermicelli in the sauce a bit longer, so the vermicelli was more tender, and it wasn’t watery like last week.
This week, the marinated duck, 卤水鸭腿肉 wasn’t a drumstick, but a thigh piece.
It was decently tender, where you could split it apart with chopsticks.
The white boiled shrimp (白灼虾 bai2zhuo2xia1) was good as before, but I did eat these in the beginning in order to get the peeling out of the way first!
And then there was the stir-fried zucchini 炒云南小瓜.
The mushrooms in the mushroom soup (菌菇汤 jun1gu1tang1) seemed a bit more tender and less woody this time, too. And the addition of a bit of salt improved things, so that it didn’t taste only like mushroom water.
11:59am - call to pick up lunch
12:50pm - relaxed on the bed (below is the view from the bed), chatted with my mom on iMessage, took a nap.
2:47pm - still in bed, but heard the temperature lady coming down the hallway knocking on other doors. Leap up and take my temperature quickly. I report it, and she also informs me that tomorrow someone will come between 8-10am to do my second COVID test, the one they do before you’re released. And then confirmed that I would check out between 6-6:30am on the 17th, and someone would call me at that time to say when I could go down.
5:24pm - dinner placed outside. This was early!
Somehow this time, I think I enjoyed the Hong Kong-style steamed chicken feet (港式蒸凤爪) even more than last time. It was quite spicy! Spicier even than the mapo tofu.
Though, the Sichuan-style mapo tofu (川式麻婆豆腐) was still good despite it not being quite as spicy and “mala” as last time.
There was also the red-braised bamboo sheets (红烧笋衣) which were as crunchy and salty-savory as I had remembered.
And then there was the stir-fried bok choy (清炒小塘菜).
Finally, dinner closed with the tomato and pickled mustard tuber egg drop soup (番茄榨菜蛋花汤). I think my salt shaker might be plugged up or something, but I struggled to get enough salt in here!
9:00pm - heard a staff member with electrostatic sprayer going up and down the hallway. This one sounded more like a vacuum cleaner (like vrooooom), while the one in the morning sounded more mechanical (like zh-zh-zh-zh). I guess they do take disinfection seriously at this hotel.
