A First-Hand Account of Isolating in a Foreign Country
The pandemic has been incredibly tough on everyone for different reasons. For some people it was missing out on hanging out with friends, for some it was missing school or work, for some it was the fear of getting infected with covid-19. For me, the hardest part of the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns was missing my partner. We met during my second year at university in 2019, shortly before he returned home to Singapore, and have been in a long-distance relationship since then. He surprised me with a visit at Christmas in 2019 and left on New Year’s Day. Seeing the person I love most in the world leave to travel thousands of miles away was one of the first things that happened to me in 2020, and it set the tone for a year and a half of hell, for me and billions of others across the world.
I had planned to visit him in May 2020, naively hopeful that the pandemic would be under control by then. Of course, the flight got canceled when Singapore closed its borders to all foreigners, and I had to wait over a year to get another chance to book my ticket. My partner, Leon, had told me about the familial ties lane, which was a safe travel lane that would let me enter the country as his fiancé. It was closed when he first brought it to my attention, but I waited desperately for it to open again, checking almost every day in case something had changed. Finally, the lane was open for applications, and we applied successfully. I knew that I would have to quarantine in a hotel for fourteen days (reduced to ten by the time I arrived) upon arrival, but I would have done almost anything to get to see him again, so I excitedly booked my plane tickets and time off work.
The date of my departure neared, and I spent days packing, full of nerves and excitement. This would be my first visit to Singapore, and I did not know what to expect from this tropical island city-state. I had prepared all the documents I needed, double-checked everything, and then I was ready to set off. The journey there was incredibly long and tiring and full of temperature checks and people who looked like aliens from the planet PPE.
When I arrived and stepped off the plane, the first thing I noticed was the heat. With an average temperature of almost 30°c during the day, I had never felt heat like it, at least not for an extended period, and I had foolishly worn jeans and a long-sleeved turtleneck shirt for the flight (my attempt to shield myself from England’s freezing Autumn temperature at the other end), with no change of clothes in my hand luggage. I waited in the immigration line for what felt like years before I was allowed to collect my luggage and be escorted to a hotel for my SHN (stay-at-home notice). A mistake by the immigration team meant that my progress was delayed by around an hour, but finally, I found the right place, and due to the delay got to ride in the air-conditioned coach completely on my own, making me feel like a high-profile celebrity or member of the royal family.
The sunset view from my hotel window on the first night of my quarantine period.
Shortly after, I arrived at the place that would be my home for the next ten days. I had been expecting a shabby, run-down hostel, but was greeted instead by a luxury 5-star hotel. Still, in awe of my surroundings, I was escorted into the lobby by more PPE monsters, where I selected my meal options for the duration of my stay. Afterward, I was taken up to my room on the tenth floor, where I immediately collapsed onto the bed from exhaustion and relief. By that point, I had not slept for twenty-four hours, and I had endured endless queues, holdups, questions, and stress.
The view from the window was breathtaking, and for a while, after I arrived, I just stared out at the cityscape. I live in a rural town in England, where the closest city was an hour and a half’s drive away, so seeing this spectacle of modernity, interspersed with a surprising amount of greenery, was both overwhelming and exciting in equal measures.
At our brunch date straight after checking out, I could not stop smiling, having waited so long to be reunited.
After a shower and a brief video call with my fiancé, where we both got giddy about the prospect of being so close together, and finally, in the same time zone, I had a short but satisfying nap in the room’s king-sized bed.
The first couple of days were mainly dedicated to adapting to the new time zone, which is a lot more difficult when your only routine is the one you set for yourself. At first, I was still mesmerized by the view out of the window and sat for ages staring out at the buildings and the people walking and running in the sun. Initially, I was just people-watching, but then I started to get incredibly jealous of these people that could walk around freely outside.
One of the best parts of my isolation period was getting visited by Leon. Although he could not enter the hotel, he would jog from his house to the street next to the hotel, to wave at the blurred shadowy figure that was me in my tenth-story room with glass darkened to block the worst of the sun. To see him there in the flesh, despite not being able to see his face properly from that distance, was the highlight of every day that he visited, and it made me increasingly more excited to see him properly when I was finally let out of isolation.
He brought gifts with him when he visited and dropped them off with the concierge at the front desk, whether these were things that I needed or that he thought I would like. One such item was his Nintendo Switch, which was invaluable when I was trying to occupy myself. I am usually rather adept at keeping myself entertained, but when your time is nothing but your own it is a lot harder to find things to fill the hours. When I had nothing to procrastinate from, the things I usually enjoy held my attention for much shorter periods, with my mind constantly filled with thoughts of what I would do once I got released from my luxury prison. A drawback to being a connoisseur of British comedy in this situation was that all streaming services adapt their content to suit the location you are in, rather than the location your account is set to, so most of the programs I frequently watch back home were not available. Likewise, British streaming services such as BBC iPlayer, All4, and ITV Hub are not available abroad, so I felt rather lost without the shows I rewatch as a source of comfort in this strange and often lonely limbo. After a while of desperately searching for pirated episodes of Peep Show and The Mighty Boosh on YouTube, I finally gave up, trading grainy footage with terrible audio for re-watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix.
The food that my hotel provided was of a much higher standard than I had expected, and in much larger quantities. Although it was delivered in cardboard takeaway boxes that did little to preserve the heat of the food and was left outside my room as if I was a prison inmate, I certainly could not complain about the quality and was always full, often even having to throw away leftovers that I could not finish.
Before I could check out, I had to complete a PCR test, which meant being let out of my room briefly. I felt like an animal who had been let out into the wild after years of living in captivity; I was reluctant at first to leave the safety and familiarity of my room, but once I could other real people heading to complete the test, and breathe in the fresher air in the wide-open spaces of the corridors, I cherished every moment, up until a man dressed head to toe in plastic protective clothing stuck a swab so far up my nose that it made my eyes water.
That night I mostly spent packing, gathering up my belongings that had gotten more spread out as I had relaxed into the quarantine lifestyle. I could barely sleep, too excited about being reunited with Leon the next morning. The hotel had communicated with me the time slot for my check-out, but I was awake hours beforehand, anxiously pacing the room and listening to Elton John songs to try and maintain at least a visage of calm. Eventually, I got a call confirming that my PCR test was negative, and somebody came to fetch me to escort me down to the main reception. I was a ball of nervous energy in the elevator on the way down, looking around futilely to see if I could see my fiancé from there. After reaching the reception, I handed the relevant documents over to the staff and then turned around to be greeted by Leon, beaming so widely that it was clear even when obscured by his mask. He wrapped his arms around me, and suddenly everything felt okay. As I hugged him back tightly, all the stress, all the uncertainty, all of the distance that had been between us, the many months that had passed since we last saw each other, melted away. In his arms, in the lobby of the hotel, I felt truly happy for the first time in almost two years.
