isolation zone

When I tested positive for covid-19 just over two weeks ago, I was sent to a so-called ‘isolation hotel’ on the remote island of Lantau. Paula had to come too, if only because we’d been in close contact. When we arrived at the Novotel, I was dismayed to learn that we had been assigned separate rooms—on the 15th floor—but was relieved to discover that they were connected internally:

The photo above was taken from my room; and this was the view from my window:

Overall, the view wasn’t nearly as interesting as that from the window of our quarantine hotel, details of which I posted in q – 37. Here are four views across Tung Chung Bay, which was as far to the left as it was possible to see from my room, looking towards the airport:

They were taken on different days. Notice the light blue buildings next to the shore; I believe that they are a ‘regular’ isolation centre, and I’m relieved that we didn’t end up there. Incidentally, I saw just three planes taking off during the 11 days that we were incarcerated, which reflects how little traffic is passing through Hong Kong’s airport nowadays.

And here are four views looking as far right as possible:

I don’t know the name of the mountain, but it’s a reasonable assumption that there’s a good footpath along the skyline.

This is a general view of the estate directly in front of my window:

…while this is a similar view with long shadows cast by the westering sun:

…and this photo shows the sun reflecting on the windows of the far line of four blocks:

And this is a night-time view of the line of residential blocks:

As I reported in According to Plan?, the orange lights on the top of each block came on each evening at precisely 8pm and went off again at 10pm.

This is a view of the street directly below our rooms:

There are certainly a lot of trees!

And this is a night-time view of approximately the same area:

The diagonal structure that you can see in the last two photos is a pedestrian bridge. It carried quite a lot of traffic, but I never saw anyone emerging into the open on the far right. However, when we finally left and were heading for Tung Chung station, we did find out where all the people went after disappearing from view at the right-hand end of the footbridge. A shopping mall:

There was one other feature that I could see from my room:

This is some kind of ornamental garden, which I assumed was part of the hotel. This conjecture was confirmed when we finally left, when I noticed a photo of the garden in the lift taking us down to check-out. However, I saw just one person here during our stay, which I assumed was the gardener. The irregular blocks appear to be part of some kind of water feature, although no water was flowing during our stay.

Finally, what was the food like in the Novotel. There was certainly a lot of it, although I couldn’t finish many of the main meals. Here are two that I did polish off:

The one thing I remember here is the struggle to open the door—and keep it open while collecting each meal from the small table just outside, the delivery of which was announced by a sharp knock on the door. The hydraulic door-closing mechanism was clearly set to maximum!