Report of a fourteenth in a hotel in Japan

At landing, it is no longer authorized for travelers to take the Shuttles, these shuttles on internal rails at the airport.So we had to walk 1 to 2 kilometers dragging our cabin baggage to reach the control center.On the way, all the toilets 🚽 are closed and therefore unusable;It will have been better to provide a last passage to the toilets before the descent of the aircraft.Once in the control zone, staff check the papers filled on the plane ✈️: from which country we come, by which territory we have passed in case of stopover, our seat number, etc..We fill out a "Pledge" form with our identity information and our possible symptoms: fever, breathing difficulties, fatigue, loss of taste or smell (although the latter are a priori minority with omicron).

We are assigned a number for confidentiality issues, then we are given a badge to wear around the neck with a specific color strap: orange for the hotel, red if you can go home directly.For everyone, the salivary PCR test is compulsory.From here in the result, Japan does not fail to reputation and it is a farandole of papers waiting for us, scared by a quantity of overabundant staff.If we had previously fulfilled the questionnaire on the MOFA website (the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs), our QR code is scanned, if not another queue awaits us.A temperature plug is automatically carried out by camera.We will have to indicate our possible allergies and food preferences for the food that will be provided at the hotel.

Then, head for a dedicated boarding hall with many tables for the configuration of our smartphone 📱.The latter is compulsory: if you do not have them or your phone is too old, you are forced to rent one on site.The staff installs the mysos application (which already existed before the pandemic for medical use), the parameter in "quarantine covid" mode and provides you with a 32 -page user manual (!) In Japanese.It is however possible to pass the application in French/ English.We check our email address by sending us a test message and then configure your GPS to activate the location.

After 1 to 2 hours of waiting, the result of the PCR test falls.Each traveler is called with his attributed number;If the result is positive, it is a person in full combination and visor above the mask 😷 who comes to get you.At immigration, the staff revals all the documents, in particular the passport and the Japanese MOFA form corresponding to the compulsory PCR test carried out 72 hours before boarding (laboratory results, even in English, are not accepted).We then recover our luggage, which await us tidy online in view of the time since landing.In total, it took a little more than 2h30 administrative, checks and waiting before being able to get out of the airport.

Passing customs 🛂, security agents with an "quarantine" acronym will accompany us until the entrance to the bus that will take us to the hotel.We ask to go to the toilet beforehand: a vigil accompanies us and awaits in front of the door.Once on the bus, we are installed with distancing and we notice plexiglass walls above each seat file.On the way to isolation at the hotel!

6 days in the hotel room...

Obviously, we never knew in advance in which hotel we were going to be placed.For your servant, it was the Kansai Airport Washington which was allocated, located just on the other side of the bridge that connects the airport to Honshu, just 10 minutes by bus.The choice of the hotel does not depend on our function (we are not a journalist) or the travel class in which we were on the plane, even Novak Djokovic understood this in Australia.

Rules and procedures

We are made to penetrate the building by the service entrance and not the main entrance, permanently accompanied by security agents.

In the elevator that leads us to our floor (not mixed), we go up individually.When the doors open, 5 people await us to check our identity again, our food preferences and our symptoms.We are then told the procedures that will governing the next 6 days: schedules and operation of meals, availability of reception (from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in our case), how to get the trash out, change sheets and towels, etc..No hotel staff will enter the room for the duration of quarantine.A chair is in front of the door to make the link: place the meals, remove the garbage, etc..Note that it is forbidden to throw the bottles, so we will have accumulated a certain stock at the end of the fourtezen.

With the exception of raw food (for example sushi 🍣) for fear of food poisoning, it is possible to be carried meals via Uber EAT.In reality, it is not so simple: very few deliverers go to the airport area where we are.And if we try to go through another application, it is not always possible to pay by bank card 💳 and the hotel does not settle in cash on reception on behalf of its customers.On the other hand, no problem for more conventional packages provided that the delivery schedule.The hotel supplies 3 water bottles of 50cl per day, as well as tea and coffee at will.It can also place a pillow or duvet if necessary, as well as hygienic towels for women who are in this period of the month.Deliveries of these needs are generally made under 10 to 15 minutes only.

Point of vigilance for smokers: it is forbidden to smoke in the room!We are not concerned and the hotel delivers nicotine gums for free if necessary, but this can also be an opportunity to stop.In the same way, it is forbidden to drink alcohol because it is said that it could influence the result of the COVVID tests to carry out yourself (see below).

We are finally given a temperature taking form to be carried out and fill out morning and evening, as well as an old thermometer to place under the armpit, which takes 3 minutes to give a figure!If you have more than 37.5 ° C or any symptom, you must immediately call reception.Please note: we speak Japanese but if not your case, the staff of the hotel poorly mastering English, there could be communication problems.

The room and the development in detail

We "check" our GPS position in the hotel to fix our point of residence of these first 6 days.

We are lucky: our hotel is recent and the room attributed to us, very clean, is spacious with around twenty square meters in total.We have 2 semi-double beds with good bedding, a small bench and a pouffe, the toilets and the bathtub in the bedroom and even space to do a little physical activity.Sound isolation is good.Unfortunately, not everyone has this same luxury.In terms of small equipment, we have a TV (the only non-Japanese channel being CNN in English), a kettle and a small fridge as well as all the usual toilet equipment, but no microwave.The small window, which overlooks the highway, opens very slightly;It is therefore unfortunately difficult to ventilate.In addition, WiFi 📶 is quite slow but we will do with.

We are called by a robot every day on mysos at a random schedule (but not at night of course), a few minutes after receiving a notification.Our smartphone automatically puts in "selfie" mode to control both our face without mask and a decor representative of our quarantine place.If we miss the call once, it is not too serious, but we are made to understand that it should not happen too often...In addition, we must indicate our health situation every day, by checking whether or not we have fever and/or symptoms COVID.Finally, we must validate our GPS position several times a day.

The evening's day before the 3rd and 6th days, we are made an autonomous saliva test that we have to put in front of the room before 7 am.At the beginning of the afternoon, we are provided the results;If the 2 tests come back negative, we can get out of the hotel after 6 days.

Meals content

The 3 meals of the day are delivered on the chair respectively at 8 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. (if we do not withdraw it in the minute, the reception calls us).Luckily, we do not have an announcement in a speaker;Some friends' testimonials tell us that they are waking up daily at 6:30 am!The contents of meals are almost identical every day with a rotation over 3 days, here they are in detail:

The amount of food offered for lunch is less generous than on the plane;Depending on your appetite, this can be rather light.Fortunately, back from France, we had planned in the suitcase of the sliced hair bread and cheese to complete!

Our feeling

From a personal point of view, the atmosphere is obviously a little strange.We just have the right to open the door very quickly and with a mask on the face (the FFP2 is not compulsory) to recover and deposit the essentials.There is necessarily this impression of going around in circles and above all to be deprived of fundamental freedoms, in conditions reminiscent of those that we imagine of the prison because, even if we are better housed, we have noright to get out of our 4 walls.There is obviously no question of comparing these experiences.

In addition, an exogenous factor in the form of a sword of Damocles weighs on the serenity of mind: if you are declared positive (ve) in the test of the 3rd or 6th day, or if another passenger of your flight is tested positive at theVarying omicron during its isolation (depending on if you find yourself contact depending on the positioning on the plane), the forties go to 14 days and you are changed in the 8 to 11 days remaining.

Note, however, that this period of fourtezaine in a hotel benefits from the Japanese service and remains completely free for the traveler, because it is taken care of by Japanese taxes (which we pay as a resident).This is not the case in a number of other countries, such as Canada so as not to quote it.

...Then 8 days at home

From our hotel, we were allowed to come and pick us up directly after 6 days.But many other establishments bring travelers to the airport, even if your home is more distant!And it will then be necessary to take a "corona" special taxi (and expensive!), Rent a car 🚙 or bring someone to leave.

We are asked to specify the time that our loved one will come to pick us up to leave the room on the battery time, accompanied by two people from the hotel who do not touch on our business or the chamber door, which mustStay open after our departure.We descend alone in the elevator, at the descent from which we are given a self-test to make at home on the 10th day.The car must stop at the place indicated in front of the establishment because we cannot move away on foot without the presence of the staff.

Arriving with us, we "check" our GPS position again to fix our point of residence for the past 8 days.We will still have a random schedule every day, automatic control calls. Nous bénéficierons d'un droit de déplacement très limité pour les premières nécessités : aller faire ses courses dans un konbini ou un petit supermarché dans le quartier, ou encore aller récupérer un repas en "click & collect" dans un restaurant de proximité.

Then we will find freedom!Battery for the return of an emergency pre-state linked to Omicron?