Day 3 – Thursday, 2nd September 2021

Humph. Still jet lagged! I only had 4 hours sleep from Wednesday evening.

I read online that your body recovers every 1 day per 1 time zone. That means as HK is 7 hours ahead, it will take me 7 days to recover. Probably more for me… I think it takes me an extra 2 days to completely be in sync with the time zone I’m in.

Because I woke up early, I was waiting for breakfast, and just sat around staring into space just thinking… But before eating, I had to provide a saliva sample. I read the instructions, and looked at the pictures, and watched the video. This reminded me of doing that 23andMe DNA test. (Do you think this lab might be doing a deep DNA test on me as well? … probably not, I didn’t consent to that). You’re not to eat, drink or smoke for 30 minutes before providing the sample… I resisted, but did have a sweet and water way before I provided my saliva. I left the sample outside on the chair before 9am.

Then it was time to eat breakfast. Hotcakes were good. Baby carrots were nice and soft. Sausage was ok. I have a feeling the hotel bought a lot of cherry tomatoes, they’re not sweet enough, but ok to eat.

After breakfast my FoodPanda delivery of crisps and facial tissue came. Tempo tissues are a bit stronger than the hotel ones, that’s why I bought them. The packets of Lays crisps are big, and they’ll last for 2 or 3 days (for me). The grilled seafood flavour tastes like prawns and has a little spiciness to them. The pork shogayaki tastes like sweet and salty soy sauce flavoured with a hint of pork.

After the morning excitement, I had another nap – I’m really trying to get over this jet lag quickly!

I woke up in time for lunch. The food came before 1pm. Japanese style beef with rice and vegetables. The beef was a little under seasoned (I have a salt grinder with me – so I added a bit of salt to it). There was some raw onions underneath the beef, they tasted “old” as my parents would say… as in they’ve been around for too long, and taste tough to eat. There was too much rice, but mostly tried to finish it… Time to excercise? Yep, I will have to! The orange was left to be eaten after dinner.

Just before I was going to start work, I received a call about the next 5 swabbing tests during my quarantine – make sure to have your HKID card and passport in reach as they ask you to verify your details and phone number.

It was now time to work… but for some reason, I kept getting kicked out of my remote access. The computer just said “No” to me a few times. I sat in front of the screen for 4 meetings on Teams, answered loads of emails and tried to keep myself busy… It was easy in the beginning, but I got tired by 9pm HK time. The last meeting was at 10pm! 😦

After the first three meetings (hoping I didn’t disturb my one neighbour next door – I tried to talk quietly, so I only covered one ear with my headphones), time flew by so quickly that my dinner was actually waiting outside, and I didn’t even hear the staff knock on the door.

I had a cold dinner of deep fried pork, spaghetti, mushroom sauce and chips. The spaghetti and pork were fine. The chips went too cold. 😦 The mushroom sauce went well with the spaghetti.

After the last meeting, I think my body just flopped. I stayed up another 2 more hours.

The aircon was too cold and I was complaining to MummyGeek that I was cold, but then I realised I can turn up the temperature… turned it up to 25 degrees celcius. In the middle of the night, I took off my thin jumper… too warm now. LOL!

Day 4 – Friday, 4th September 2021

Got around 5 to 6 hours sleep. Still jet lagged, but feel much better than the past two days.

I was up in time for the breakfast, and then I tried to get back to sleep but couldn’t, SO…

I decided to just stay up, I had my coffee and watched a Korean variety show called Delicious Rendezvous, which I’m behind on. Hopefully I can catch up before the end of quarantine as each episode is around 1.2 hours long… Trying not to nap so that I can sleep longer after work.

Lunch came on time today. Not complaining about the rice this time as it was enough. I also added a bit of my own chilli oil in at the last minute just to spice the cabbage, soy sauce chicken wings and the rice. I forgot to eat the pear!!

I was going to start a little early, but got interuptted at the door with all of this…

The big white bag contained towels and pillow cases. As it was there, I felt obliged to change them, then I left the big white bag with the old towels and pillow cases I used.

Do I like online shopping? Yes I do, and if one can’t go out and shop, the next best thing is to shop for your needs using the HKTV Mall app. You need a HK mobile number to use this, so if you haven’t got one, I suggest you get your hotel or family to buy you one. HKTV Mall is a bit like Amazon but there is a 2 or 3 day shipping delivery. So there’s no next day delivery unless you’re going to use their lockers to pick them up. From the app I bought some Japanese alcohol, cup noodles, Pringles, another date SIM (I’m using around 4 GB a day) and a USB extension (I completely forgot to take one out of my work bag in the UK, grrr). I bought a HDMI-USB adapter after receiving this, because I can’t for the life of me, remove the TV and plug in the cable. It’s very difficult… will write about in the final post about the hotel.

After the “Friday morning meeting” with lots of colleagues (it was a little tense actually), I worked through some emails and had a catchup meeting with my Team who looked tired and wanted to be out of the country too. 😦 Fingers crossed the UK will be out the horrible sticks… At least they’re not facing a 21 day quarantine!

Dinner came quite early… so I hurriedly ate that. I still wish the onions were cooked properly. No one likes warm raw onions…In the end they were thrown out into the pot of sauce and in the bin! The beef was fine… and the rice of course was too much (for me). Didn’t drink the green tea – it remains in the fridge for another day.

Then back to work. My remote access defo doesn’t like it here in HK – I kept getting cut off. Oh well… I’ll do some of the work on the weekend to make up the time.

End of Days 3 and 4.