So long, hotel quarantine

Hong Kong just announced 0+3, which means 0 days required Quarantine Hotel! Arrivals to Hong Kong can go home, or to ANY hotel in Hong Kong for 3 days of medical surveillance. Huge news for Hong Kong! To anyone else in the world it probably seems odd, but after personally doing a 21 day Quarantine in a hotel, it's nice to be able to just go home or at least have a choice of which hotel you stay at.

In the old system you had to not only book your air ticket and have your pcr test, you also had to have a Quarantine Hotel booked. Only so many hotels participated in the program, and they booked up fast. We could only find one option, the Ramada Harbour View in Sai Ying Pun. It was also a bit more affordable.

We arrived here on October 9/10, 2021. After about 5 hours at the airport, we were transported to the Ramada Harbour View. The bus ride was about a half hour, but it felt longer. When we arrived, I first thought the outside had a decent appearance, it had a lot of gold details, which now remind me of a gilded cage.

We took an elevator to the lobby, where we were checked in. The hotel had dividers up everywhere. Lots of signs to remind you of what you had gotten yourself into. We were then taken up to our floor by another elevator where one staff member helped unload the luggage into our room. The narrow hallway was lined with the essential stools, and our room was in the corner.

I cannot say that it was the worst hotel. I did read some horror stories prior to our stay and it wasn't as bad as I imagined, but it was very small. It had a small bathroom which was closed off by a sliding door. The rooms color scheme was every shade of brown. The beds were hard... break your hips hard, you wouldn't want to collapse on these mattresses. We were provided 21 bottles of water, which did not last three weeks. However, because our room was in the corner, we had a great view of the road below. I spent much of my time watching the tiny people go about their day.

We were constantly reminded by the flyers on our door that if we even stepped outside our door, we could be fined $25,000 HKD (about $3,185 USD), sentenced to 6 months, and sent to Penny Bay for the rest of our Quarantine. I was a bit scared every time we had to open the door as a result. I read about people running away. Quarantine can be really hard on people mentally. It felt like a waiting room for me. I was away from the people and places I knew, and waiting to start this new chapter in a new land.

Food was provided three times a day, and left on the stool outside. They'd either knock or ring the room once to let us know it was there. The menu would repeat weekly. Some days I might look forward to a meal, and other days I wouldn't even open it, and that was usually dinner... every night seemed to be a meat in gravy, and cabbage. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it wasn't really good. We could also order take-out and groceries from the outside, we did that about once a day. Most of the time staff would take about an hour to deliver, so take-out was never hot and fresh.... they had a lot of things to do in a hotel full of guests who couldn't leave.

Our fridge fit about six cans of soda, and really didn't work well. The bread went moldy, and the milk went bad. Our friend sent us a care package which included a little plug in hot pot, so we could boil eggs or cook ramen, which gave us more options.

Time moved kind of quickly, some days felt kind of long, but I looked forward to testing days. It meant we were moving forward, and it was the one time you would see actual people interacting with you ... even if it was just to swab your nose and mouth. They were clothed in head to toe PPE, and would always bring along this air filter with a long tube that sucked up any air you breathed out. They were very gentle with the nose swab, compared to testers in the U.S. and Canada.

Wen was working while in quarantine, so he stayed fairly busy. We also watched movies, or played with Xinyi, we had devoted one bag to Xinyi's toys, so she had blocks, figures, coloring books and reading books... and she had screen time too. We also slept a lot! I had just entered my 2nd trimester when we flew to Hong Kong, so having all this time to nap was kind of nice. I wanted to be more active, but it was hard to exercise in our cramped room full of luggage, so I did walking workouts on YouTube.

The worst part of Quarantine for me was the last week, when a chain smoking guest moved in down the hall. The hotel is supposed to be smoke free, but this person was inconsiderate. Made complaints, and nothing was done, said they couldn't locate them. Locked in a room due to Covid restrictions, but our lungs were under attack by 2nd hand smoke. When it was finally time to leave, it felt like a big production to repack all of our things. I wasn't sad to say goodbye to our hotel room. I was filled with excitement and anxiety to step outside, and it felt strange to breathe in fresh air after 21 days.

We transferred to the Stanford Hillview after this... and their beds felt like a dream! It has now almost been a year since our 21 day adventure in a Quarantine Hotel. I am thankful our tests remained negative for the duration, as the alternative at that time would have opened up more complications. Hopefully going forward, conditions continue to improve, and when we finally do travel, it's even easier to return to Hong Kong. Have you ever had to quarantine in a hotel?