Quarantine Diary Day 1: Checking into the Homeinn Selected Hotel.
They say the quarantine process is like a “盲盒“ or “blind box” experience. Blind boxes are what some people in China buy during holiday times; you buy a box from a store, for example even Apple does this sometimes, but you don’t know what’s in it. It’s a surprise. Although in those cases you know how much you’re going to pay in advance. In the quarantine process in China, you don’t even know the price of the hotel before you arrive.
Well it certainly was a surprise to pull up to this hotel, the Homeinn Selected hotel 如家商务酒店 on 400 South Wanping Road 宛平南路400号. I’d never heard of anyone getting this hotel before.
Before we entered, staff sprayed disinfectant on our luggage. I purposefully took my duffel bag off of my two hard-sided suitcases, because I didn’t want disinfectant to seep into the canvas fabric. They didn’t seem to mind. They didn’t spray disinfectant on me or my backpack or messenger bag either.
We entered through what looked like could be a back door, but was really the front door of the hotel. At least the lobby didn’t look like a war zone like the Jianguo Hotel. That might be one of the few things that were nicer here. That and the hard surface floors.
The staff from the district desk came off the bus to give our passports to the check-in staff. So they called us up in the order they had our passports. You can see the familiar plastic buckets for you-know-what.
I was called up fairly quickly, “Who has an American passport here?” I had to fill out and then sign a lot of papers, and also got my instructions for the two weeks. When meals would be. And yes, we did have to use those plastic buckets to dissolve disinfection tablets and pour into the toilet, just like at the Jianguo Hotel.
The rules for delivery were the most strict at this hotel. Only packaged goods with shelf life of more than 6 months were allowed.
I did like that we could put our trash outside at a certain time each day, rather than have staff come into our rooms to take out the trash and spray disinfectant, as at the Jianguo Hotel.
I paid 400 RMB per night, and 100 RMB per day of food, for a total of 7000 RMB.
The elevator was completely covered in disinfectant.
Upon exiting the elevator, I passed by this grim room, which looks like where they mix up their large quantities of cheap disinfectant.
The hallway didn’t look too bad.
Everything’s covered in dried up disinfectant, though.
The room was modern, but very compact. I did appreciate that there was a fairly sizable work desk. A lot of places don’t have this amenity!
There was a big alcove where the window was. I wiped the whole room with my disinfectant wipes, and this part came up especially dirty. Basically black.
On the opposite side of the window, was a wall of built-in closets, and a little cubby with a kettle and cups,… and an ash tray?
The hotel provided us with 24 550ml bottles of Coca Cola brand 冰露 (“ice dew”) water. This was very welcome. I also appreciated the hard surface flooring throughout, from the tile in the entry and bathroom, to the wood-look tile in the bedroom.
At check-in, they gave us a plastic bag of amenities. Inside were two dental kits, two combs, shampoo and body wash, two packs of facial tissue, two rolls of toilet paper (not pictured), and two pairs of slippers.
Inside of the bucket, there were two bottles of disinfection tablets, and a whole roll of black garbage bags to put our trash in.
There was also a thermometer, alcohol swabs, and what I only realized later was something like a medicated bar of soap? They also gave us 3M N95 masks, which appeared genuine according to the list of things to watch out for that I read on NY Times. We were told to wear this every time we opened the door, for our twice-daily temperature checks, and even when we opened the door to pick up our food or take out the trash. I thought this was very thoughtful, given that there have been reports of virus transmission across the hallway in quarantine hotels. I don’t think we were aware of things like this in 2020.
The bathroom was quite modern, like the rest of the room. Some people had installed stick-on hooks all over. In the picture, the bathroom looks quite attractive. But wiping the counter left a strange reddish hue on the wipe. And the black fixtures appear handsome, but were actually cheap painted plastic.
See, the shower fixture was held together by tape.
And when I turned on the rainforest shower, I heard a pop (bursting tape?) and water poured over the top of the shower head, as if the connection had broken from the pipe. I was relegated to using the very low-mounted hand shower the entire two weeks.
And the grout of the shower floor was none too clean.
And that long black hair on the pillow definitely did not come from me, in the few minutes after I entered the room.
The Homeinn was a much lower quality hotel than the Jianguo Hotel, and I paid the same amount - 400 RMB/night and 100 RMB/day of food - at the Jianguo in 2020! Later I did find out that the Jianguo Hotel price went up to 500 RMB per night and 80 RMB per day for food, and this hotel did not charge separately for all of the PCR tests that we did. But I know some people who stayed at a nice Crowne Plaza in Pudong who paid 350 RMB/night. So prices are also a surprise, and in my WeChat groups we guess that prices in Xuhui district might be among the highest in Shanghai.
At least I was finally in the Homeinn Selected quarantine hotel room in Shanghai at 10pm, about 24 hours and 15 minutes from when I left the Residence Inn San Francisco Airport/San Mateo!
