Post-Lockdown Day 3: Dragon Boat Festival, and a bike ride throughout town in search of...

Today was a day in search of.

First I went in search of the jianbing lady, for a jianbing breakfast. She still wasn’t in her usual place, but it looked like the breakfast operation with the youtiao people was back up and running, after doing their cleaning.

Then I went in search of sandwich bread, pan de molde. I wanted to make gilgeori toast again, but without the hassle of making the bread myself, as I did last time. I was originally thinking of going towards “28 aout” bakery, on Changle Road 长乐路 just past Xiangyang Road 襄阳北路, but I remembered that there might have been a positive case that visited that area yesterday or the day before - that which triggered our 1am PCR test this morning.

So I went in the opposite direction, towards “mdb” bakery. Looks like there’s a precarious maintenance operation happening here.

I got to mdb, but they only had huge pullman loaves available. So then I walked down Huashan Road 华山路 to Luneurs. But it turns out they only had coffee and ice cream!

So I came back to mdb to buy that big loaf. Everything is outdoors nowadays - no ordering inside.

Coming back to my neighborhood, I also got a cup of iced oat milk latte from Yeast. My first cup of coffee besides instant!

See, the pullman loaf really is a very long one! I cut off a part to give to my friend Paz.

I had just a slice of the bread, un-toasted because it was still warm(!), with my cup of coffee. A very simple, but lovely breakfast.

Then, I went in search of some ingredients to replenish my pantry, and a bread knife, to better cut the bread. Walking by the testing site from the day before, at the park called 东湖绿地 Donghu Green Area, I thought it was quite silly to find the testing site closed after just 2 days.

Then I witnessed this guy pointlessly disinfecting this empty plaza.

I went diagonally across the street from here to enter IAPM - first time in so long! Now, to enter public spaces, we need to first scan a “location QR code,” which registers us in that location, then we scan our health codes in a scanner which shows that we have had a PCR test within the mandated 72 hours. And which takes our temperature at the same time. (And does it record our picture too?)

At Citysuper, there wasn’t the vinegar or scallions that I was looking for, but I got a few other supplies. They did have a bread knife (Kai brand, from Japan!), but it was 240 RMB (US$36) which was kind of dear for me. Especially since I knew there was a 3-piece knife set which included a bread knife at IKEA for only 40 RMB (US$6).

Unfortunately, this knife set was not available at the Jing’An City Ikea which is walking distance from IAPM, but it was available at the bigger Xuhui location. Usually I would take the subway, because there’s a subway stop very close to home that goes almost directly to the IKEA. But I didn’t really feel up to taking public transportation, so I biked half an hour to get there.

Just before reaching IKEA, I passed by the Huating Hotel. This is where all of this started. The outbreak that triggered the 2-month lockdown started with the staff at this hotel, which had just been requisitioned as a quarantine center, go infected and spread the virus in the community.

Interestingly, when I went by, it appeared to be living quarters for medical staff, but I could be mistaken.

Then I arrived at IKEA. Very few people here!

The entrance hall was so deserted. The staff on the left is holding a sign “We are open for business!” Um, why? We customers are already inside, so we obviously already know that you’re open.

There were no lines to check out. But I hated the self-service checkout. One has to touch the screen so many times, and then pick up the scanner and press the button to scan your items. So much touch. I understand they have a handheld scanner for when you need to scan bulky furniture items in a big cart. But why can’t they also have a fixed scanner where you just hold up your items to it to scan, like the kiosks that supermarkets have.

I then biked half an hour back to my area, and since I was passing Wulumuqi Road 乌鲁木齐路, I decided to stop by the market there to see if they had scallions. Since entering public places is kind of a hassle with all of the scanning of QR codes (and I also didn’t want to register in a location, increasing my chances of being a close contact), I just asked one of the guys at the door if they had scallion inside. He said no. I was only half expecting he would know the stock of a particular item inside, but this must be a hot topic for him to know the answer!

I poked my head into a couple other produce sellers on this block, but they didn’t have scallion either.

I came back home and prepared the Gilgeori toast, with the big red sausage, for a very late lunch. I was quite hungry by this time, especially with so much biking. This didn’t come out as well as last time, mainly because the cabbage-egg mixture stayed very loose and fell apart. Still tasty though. I think griddling the bread in butter and cooking the cabbage-egg part in butter too makes it particularly tasty.

Then I had a bowl of watermelon for dessert.

This afternoon, I saw the news that it wasn’t just a COVID-positive person visiting some stores close to me. But rather three people tested positive outside of lockdown areas, and two of them lived very close to me. And one of these two them is in my subdistrict. This is what prompted the 1am PCR test this morning, and what prompted another round of mass testing tonight. So it actually turned out that the 1am PCR test was kind of useless, because it did not exempt me from taking the test this evening!

A colleague of mine who also lives in this area has continuously been in lockdown since April 1. And my Ayi just told me that her compound went back into lockdown. I think she lives near the Case No. 1 in the press release below.

Entryway leader said that PCR testing would start at 7pm. So I kind of just waited around until then (originally I wanted to watch the finale of the Lincoln Lawyer). But then at 7pm she said that it wouldn’t be our turn until around 9pm or so. Huh?

Okay, so if that’s the case, I would go to Citysuper again to stock up on a few more things, given that there’s a chance we could be locked down again.

On my way there, I noticed that the Bank of China ATMs had their lockdown seals removed!

I also noticed that they didn’t turn on the lights in the park, I guess trying to dissuade people from congregating here. Well, people just walked around the barricade, and sat in their friend groups in the dark.

Citysuper was surprisingly normal. No lines anywhere. But you could tell they were still ramping back up. And I have to consider how much of the food has been there since before lockdown. A lot of the cheeses, for example, had rapidly approaching expiration dates. At IKEA, I was going to buy some smoked salmon, but I noticed that a lot of them had freezer burn.

On my way back home, there was testing going on all over the place. On the sidewalk, for example.

And then the gates towards the big street were padlocked. But I had just exited through here just now!

More testing in another compound…

…and testing was already underway in my compound.

We had to bring a positive antigen test again, so I just brought one from my stash that I’ve accumulated.

And, it was back to testing.

The white styrofoam box on the ground is where we threw all of our antigen tests into.

After the test, I stir-fried some green vegetable…

… and prepared zongzi 粽子 in honor of Dragon Boat Festival 端午节. I steamed the one that seemed the most special - the one with pork and egg yolk. It was indeed very good, and felt like it was a lot more than just rice, which is how the others kind of felt. The pork flaked easily, unlike the chewy piece in the ones I tried before.

And the red bean turned out to be my favorite of all five that I tried. First I suppose I’ve always preferred sweet over savory zongzi. But in particular, in this zongzi the red bean filling is actually quite plentiful.