Has it only been five days of the Covid-19 quarantine? It feels longer than that.
We're allowed to order food from outside starting from yesterday. Our WhatsApp chat group lighted up like a Christmas tree with orders for room supplies (fresh towels, toilet rolls, soaps, linens, help fixing locked sink, help with TV, Wifi, kettle, etc), so the hotel staff is swamped. I imagine it cannot be easy for the staff - we're batch number three and I believe there are seven batches in all at this hotel. They have to run a very tight ship. It's not like normal hotel service that they provide; they're dealing with hundreds of guests who are room-bound. So, being super organized is paramount; as is possessing the patience of a saint! The hotels staff can certainly add this valuable experience in the CV should they wish to continue a career in the Hotel industry. Valuable experience.
Having said that, the hotel guests / PUS (Persons Under Surveillance) have also been, overall, quite cooperative and patient. After all, this is a quarantine centre, not a hotel offering the usual service. It's no place to tout "Customer is always right.' We are lucky that we're allowed to order things online and have them delivered to the hotel. It makes life easier for us and for the hotel staff.
Good news! We received confirmation that everyone else in our batch has negative result from the test that was conducted upon arrival at the airport four days ago. You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief in the chat group. I'm not a sentimental person generally, but I had a thought earlier today; I wondered if from now on, I (and others in quarantine here) will think differently of Oriental Crystal Hotel. Not just another hotel building in town, but 'that' hotel where we spent 14 days indoors, sharing banter on the group chat during our quarantine.
My sister, Nur, helped to buy and arrange for Grab Car to deliver it to the hotel. Everything that arrives at the hotel will be vetted by staff from the Ministry of Health and delivered to the rooms the next day. This is to minimise risk of any infection from outside (remember the case of the restaurant owner who infected his staff who then infected a number of people who went to the restaurant?). Food can only be ordered via Grab service and only from restaurant chains like McDonalds, KFC, A&W, etc. The reason being, these restaurants tend to have hygiene SOPs that are more established and more closely adhered to than your typical local restaurant. Well, that is the assumption that the quarantine centre works on. This is fair enough. You just need to keep reminding yourself - you are in a quarantine centre, not on vacation (not yet anyway). You are doing your bit to keep the general populace out there safe from Covid 19. For the privilege of being able to see my Malaysian family and friends again, I think it's a small price to pay.
Did you know that when Chinese people speak, a sentence is ended with 'may' and a question is ended with 'meh'? Someone kindly pointed that out to me today in our Social chat group. Granted, they weren't 100% sure of this, but they believe this to be the case. A kindly uncle from the group also big heartedly ordered for a cake and some other things to be delivered for all the staff on duty to enjoy. So sweet of him. He's very active in the Social chat group and a very funny guy. I'm glad there's someone like him in our group. :)
Just on a side note, the other day I could hear shouting from one of the rooms on the floor I'm on. I thought it was just someone's television turned up really high. But then someone mentioned it on our Social chat group and said that it sounded like real shouting, not from the television. Was a family quarrel? Who knows. I think families travelling with kids will find this quarantine a bit tougher than single people or couples without kids.
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