Week 1 Post-Quarantine: Very slowly getting back to "normal," while the "normal" was slowly slipping away

When I left my +7 quarantine hotel, my health code was still yellow. It should have turned green when I got my second negative PCR test result, but somehow those PCR results only showed as “pending upload” in the Health Cloud system.

With a yellow code, that meant I couldn’t enter the office. So Monday, I went to get my go-to breakfast just down the street: jianbing 煎饼！I expected the price to go up since last year, because after I came back at the end of 2020, the price increased, with the jianbing maker telling that with the new year the price increased. But no, it was still 8 RMB (US$1.20) with a second egg added.

For a treat, after so many weeks of instant coffee, I decided to get a coffee from Yeast. And sadly, a nice coffee in Shanghai costs maybe 4-5x the price of that jianbing, even though I feel like the raw materials and labor of the jianbing are much greater!

I called the Shanghai hotline 12345 to ask them for help on changing my health code from yellow to green. They’re so polite! “I will transfer you to the Big Data Center(!!), but my colleague is on the line with them so I cannot connect you at this time, it is very embarrassing.” “Email your documents [14-day quarantine release papers, and the last two 2 PCR tests] to the Big Data Center email address, and they will address it today.” I emailed my documents over and waited.

Well, by the end of Monday, they hadn’t resolved the issue yet.

So Tuesday I was still working from home. No one was really in the office anyway, because on the previous Saturday, there was an event at the office. Someone at the event was on the same airplane as someone who later tested positive. Now everyone who was at the office on Saturday needed to work from home the entire week, and get 3 PCR tests. And Monday the office was been closed for cleaning and disinfection! Just because someone was on the plane with someone later was positive!

So this morning I went to the dumpling place across the street.

And had a big bowl of shepherd’s purse wontons!

I also hit up KFC for lunch, because it’s practically just outside the front gate of my community. And I was still working from home, so didn’t have a lot of time to prepare lunch.

This set lunch included a kind of peanut-flavored milk tea (too sweet). Also fried chicken (with one bone), and the egg tart. KFC’s egg tart recipe comes from a famous Macanese bakery Margaret’s!

And I wanted to try the fish sandwich, because I thought it was interesting that KFC would have one. It really wasn’t as good as McDonald’s.

Eventually it wasn’t until the end of Tuesday when the health code issue was resolved, 2 days late. Many phone calls to 12345 and many emails to the Big Data Center. I sent emails from Gmail, Hotmail, and work and they said they didn’t get them, or there would be a delay. Finally, they recommended sending the email from a “more commonly used email platform in China, or ask a friend.” So I signed up for a 163.com email address and sent my documents from there. I called again and they said they got the email and said to wait 10 minutes to refresh. I hung up and it immediately turned green.

I went back to the office later in the week, but most people were still out, having gone to that ill-fated Saturday event.

So I finally was getting “back to normal,” but at the same time the COVID situation was getting worse in Shanghai this week. What had happened while I was still in quarantine, was that in one of the quarantine hotels in Xuhui, some staff got infected, and they started to spread COVID in the community.

In fact, that hotel, Huating Hotel, was the hotel where passengers on the UA857 SFO-PVG flight following mine, who were residents of Xuhui district were sent. While we were at the Homeinn Selected hotel, my WeChat group lamented how lucky those passengers were. We were sent to the 2-star Homeinn Selected, while they got sent to Shanghai’s first international 5-star hotel (it was previously a Sheraton). But that hotel had just been requisitioned by the government into service as a quarantine hotel, and soon after the staff were infected. Someone in one of my WeChat groups was staying in that hotel, and she recounted how in the middle of the night everyone had to don hazmat suits and crowd into the lobby (that sounds safe ::rolleyes::), and wait several hours for buses to evacuate them to other hotels. So from that transmission, an outbreak started in Shanghai.

So my first weekend out of quarantine, I finally got to walk around. First I started with some breakfast. After more than a month carrying around my carton of Milkadamia from San Diego around from city to city and hotel to hotel, I finally got to open it, because I had my refrigerator! I had it with leftover cereal that I also carried all the way from San Francisco.

I went to one of my favorite eateries, a restaurant across from IAPM that specializes in steamed rice rolls. It was different this time, as they had a staff member outside checking the health codes of people entering. Thank goodness my health code issue was resolved earlier - they never used to do this before!

Here, I had some 菜心 vegetables and fried dumplings…

… but for me, my absolute favorite is the pork and century egg congee 皮蛋瘦肉粥. This is something that I do get cravings for. It’s just so flavorful and comforting!

I then walked along Huaihai Middle Road, and it was noticeably a lot quieter than normal for a Saturday.

One whole stretch looked like it had been locked down, with the entrance to the residential community blocked, and stores shuttered.

On a different block, I came across a Diary Queen that had just opened!

Interestingly, a group came in while I was waiting for my order to be prepared. One was about to sit down more in the interior of the shop, but then said, well in case we get into a snap lockdown, I want to be close to the door. Shanghai had been locking people up inside of department stores or offices!

At DQ, I tried something very China, very Shanghai. I tried their “low sweetness” soft serve, in a special edition which comprised of basically their dipped cone dunked in an affogato with Seesaw coffee, Seesaw being a kind of fancy and pricey coffee chain. I love affogatos, so this was almost a wonderful concoction, but I must say, that “low sweetness” soft serve was truly bland. Like it just tasted like creamy nothing. I don’t like things that are too sweet, but this went too extreme!

Later that evening, I contemplated what to have for dinner. I had more fast food cravings, but I also thought about one of my favorite Chinese places, a chain called Suxiaoliu 苏小柳。So I had both!

Because Shanghai was suddenly treading with care with regards to COVID, Suxiaoliu was selling uncooked items that you could prepare at home. So I bought two different kinds of wontons to prepare later.

In the same food court as Suxiaoliu, there was a McDonald’s. I put my order in on their WeChat miniapp, and when it was ready, I just needed to go to a wall of lockers, scan a QR code on my phone, and a door automatically opened with my order in it. Wow, perfect for COVID times! Also I imagine this greatly reduces congestion at the counter. But this experience did have an odd, highly impersonal feel to it.

So I composed some items from Suxiaoliu, some from McDonald’s for dinner. From Suxiaoliu, I had some favas and bamboo shoots (supposedly seasonal for spring), and also a very delicious pastry of shredded daikon radish in a flaky crust, topped with sesame seeds.

And from McDonald’s, I had a spicy chicken burger - much more satisfying than my fish sandwich from KFC!

And for dessert, a limited edition pie - duo red bean and ”双奶皮“ a kind of milk custard. Delicious! The red bean wasn’t too sweet, and the custard was nice and creamy.

The next day, on Sunday, biked over to Hema and Aldi to do some major grocery shopping. What happened was that earlier this week I tried to order Hema/Freshippo after work. Usually they deliver in 30 minutes, but Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings there were no delivery times left for the same evening. On Saturday morning I put my order in around 9am and my delivery was scheduled for 9pm the same evening. But then I waited and waited, and stayed up late. Finally at 2am, they said that they would cancel the order. What?!

So I felt like my only way to get groceries was to go myself. I brought along my duffel bag (that had contained many of my snacks during quarantine), messenger bag, and additional tote bag to stock up. When I was at Hema/Freshippo, a cleaner came up to me and said “你买这么多菜!” “You bought so much stuff!” (So characteristic of people to be nosy and make comments!)

At Aldi, I bought two of these beautiful gift boxes of strawberries, and ate one whole box the same evening.

I also stir-fried some chive flowers and pressed tofu, with some leftover bamboo shoots, and toasted one of the daikon radish pastries, for a healthy vegetable-heavy lunch.