Post Quarantine Week 3: Empty shelves as first lockdown ends, and another one begins

Some guy living in Shanghai posted this on Instagram. It’s so true. During the first lockdown, some compounds were locked down for more than a week already, while some were locked down for just two days, then they were free. While others never locked down at all. I know people in all of these categories! Many, like mine, were locked down for 2 days, then 2 more days, and then they just said “until further notice.”

Monday morning, I went to go see if the gate was unlocked. It wasn’t. The guard there had no idea when it would be unlocked.

Eventually, they put a memo up saying that they still haven’t received a memo about opening up. I got to thinking, is the default that the gate should be locked “until further notice?” Earlier the memo said that the lockdown would last only 48 hours, so shouldn’t the default be that the gate is open “unless otherwise instructed?”

This time staying at home did make me appreciate some aspects about my apartment, which I hadn’t really used before. Like my balcony! I started taking meals out here. It was nice to be outdoors, and not feel like I needed to wear a mask. (This was a bowtie pasta with leftover turkey … from Thanksgiving!)

I also saw a very interesting bird, with a greenish body and a white and black head, with a white dot behind its eye. I caught the street cat looking at the bird as if it’s a meal!

I eventually stopped going to the gate to see whether or not it was open. But then on Thursday, my friend told me that we could go get passes to leave and enter the compound!

Haha, it’s like a hall pass in school!

I immediately got on a bike to go to the supermarkets Hema/Freshippo and Aldi. I wanted to get some produce before there were further disruptions. I made a detailed list of things to buy, so I could go in and out quickly. But when I got to Hema, there were a lot of people, but very bare shelves. I wouldn’t be following my shopping list, but rather what was leftover in the store. I got lemons and rather expensive mushrooms, one of the few remaining produce, a few frozen things like frozen tofu made for hotpot and frozen shepherd’s purse, and a jar of dried beans.

I then went to over to Aldi, and found similarly picked-over shelves.

I got the last remaining vegetables: a package of bell peppers. I was so happy! I also got some of their frozen German sausages (spicy variety), which I’d always been curious about.

On my way back, I passed by a block that was cordoned off with police tape, and a waiting ambulance. My goodness, all of this for what was possibly one case?

I got home very tired, so I ordered delivery: Singapore noodles, tofu with crab, and vegetables. All were kind of bland, but the vegetables were okay.

These days, I ate more of my chili with TVP and black soy beans.

I also made kimchi fried rice.

On Saturday, I went to get some potstickers at the place I like on Xiangyang North Road. There was a huge line for the steamed bun place on the corner!

At the potsticker place, even though I didn’t enter their building (their kitchen is basically open to the sidewalk, and they just hand you your food while you’re on the sidewalk), they still made me scan a code to “check in” via the health code.

I brought my potstickers back to eat.

Today was the first day we were given antigen tests, along with these rather primitive-looking instructions. This was really a first for China to finally use antigen tests as a tool; before they had only used PCRs.

I also finished up my grain free granola, with yogurt and dragonfruit.

This afternoon, I went for a walk with a friend and former colleague. She works in HR, and said that she knew many foreigners already leaving China. We were at a coffee shop across the street from the compound, and I saw that some people in hazmat suits were by a big van, and some foreigners were leaving my compound with big suitcases! I later asked the guard what happened, and they said that they were close contacts, so were sent away.

I wanted to go by Xiangyang Park to check out the flowers, so we went by.

It’s such a pity that there are such beautiful flowers, but no one can go in since it’s been turned over to be a testing site.

Saturday evening, I invited my friend who lives in the same building as me over. I made the King Arthur pan pizza recipe in my Le Creuset cast iron pan. I’d made it several times before in San Diego, in my Lodge. I thought I’d gotten enough practice.

But despite oiling the pan, the bottom was completely stuck on! I had no choice but to remove the top part, leaving the crunchy bottom behind. I had onion, sun-dried tomato, and artichokes as toppings, along with mozzarella and parmesan.

I accompanied this with a salad of cucumber, olives (from San Diego Trader Joe’s), and cherry tomatoes that I was able to get at Aldi.

And some fruit salad to finish off, with melon (not very sweet), dragonfruit (I’ve always thought dragonfruit was kind of tasteless), and very sweet oranges.

Sunday morning, I dashed off super early - before family Zoom time - to the market on the corner. I wanted to get there early before vegetables would run out later in the day. I got these beautiful-looking greens, and I don’t know what they are exactly! I also got a bunch of other greens that look much the same, but are all green.

For lunch, I ordered from a Hong Kong restaurant just around the corner from me: Singapore fried noodles and beef ho fun. Both were really good, and piping hot, because the restaurant was so close. Amazingly, it was actually cheaper to order delivery than pickup, thanks to the discounts that one gets through Eleme.

I also baked a loaf of whole wheat bread. I used my Ikea food container, because it’s about half of the size of a loaf pan.

It came out pretty well, although the crumb was a bit dense.

I used this bread to eat with my Aldi German sausage and Aldi peppers (with onion). Delicious!

This evening, Shanghai announced that they would be starting their staggered lockdown: Pudong for 4 days starting the next morning, and then Puxi starting Friday, for 4 days. Here’s the auto-translate of their press release.

A colleague sent this hilarious - and accurate - meme, using hot pot designs. The top one says, one week ago, Shanghai used grid-style epidemic management (their much-lauded grid-style management was supposed to be highly targeted to avoid mass lockdowns). The bottom one says, one week later, Shanghai decides not to do a full city lockdown, “only” lockdown Pudong and Puxi. In other words, a full city lockdown! Pudong just refers to the part of the city to the east of the Huangpu river, and Puxi the part to the west. I think they’re so desperate to avoid saying that they have avoided a full city lockdown by doing this staggered approach.