This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around

The setting sun reflects off the clouds following a rainstorm outside our hotel in Guangzhou

It's the ninth day of our quarantine in our hotel room in Guangzhou 广州, and assuming we test negative tomorrow, on Tuesday we'll be set free (or paroled, to be more accurate) and allowed to travel to Beijing 北京, our final destination. Remarkably, despite initially being told otherwise, the three of us have been allowed to share one room rather than be split up for the ten-day duration of the quarantine. Even more remarkably, we haven't turned on each other (yet). It helps that during the weekdays I've had online Mandarin lessons to pass my time, while my wife has been doing cross-stitched embroidery and our daughter has preoccupied herself with the usual video games and her newest obsession, Formula One racing!

Getting to this point was a minor adventure. Due to China's Zero-COVID restrictions, flying commercially into the country is a difficult, expensive and unreliable way to travel. So the State Department has been chartering flights for U.S. government workers and their families to ensure the diplomatic missions can maintain staffing (and for people to take much-needed vacations from all the coronavirus restrictions). Our special flight left Dulles in the late evening of August 10 (following not one, not two, but three negative COVID tests), and arrived about seven hours later in Anchorage, Alaska. Following a crew change, we resumed our trip, heading toward the next stop on the itinerary, Incheon Airport near Seoul. We wouldn't get there, however - a power failure in the cabin (which didn't affect the plane's engines) about 90 minutes into the flight forced the jet to turn back to Anchorage. Which is how we found ourselves staying in a hotel room for more than eight hours, waiting for the trip to China to resume:

In the early morning hours at Anchorage's airport, waiting for word on whether we would be getting back on the plane or spending the night in the city. The answer in the end was "neither".

Our daughter waits to board the bus for the hotel. Not the kind of welcome we would have expected under normal circumstances. But things haven't been normal now for the past 2½ years now, have they?

The view from our hotel room in downtown Anchorage

At least that's what Amber and Shu-E did (except for going downstairs for a late breakfast and early dinner). I, on the other hand, feeling that I couldn't add Alaska to the list of U.S. states visited if I didn't actually do some exploring, went outside for a walk*. The first stop on my stroll was the statue of Captain James Cook, who visited the region in 1778:

Despite the overcast conditions, there was a good view of Mount Susitna (4396 feet/1340 meters) across the Knik Arm waterway:

A giant wall mural near the Anchorage 5th Avenue Mall:

This life-sized moose replica could've been mine for the low, low price of $7999:

A view of downtown Anchorage:

On Thursday evening we were taken by bus back to the airport, and flew to Incheon without incident. Following another crew change and cabin cleaning, we arrived at the airport in Guangzhou** on a Saturday morning local time (what happened to Friday?). Separated from the rest of the airport by workers in hazmat suits, we were eventually able to retrieve our bags and be taken by bus to our quarantine hotel. This has been our view since:

There have been brief spells of rain:

A morning scene, taken around 0700 hours (you can see the airport control tower in the background):

And that's been pretty much it. I mean were in quarantine in a hotel room with a king-sized bed for Shu-E and me, and a rollaway for Amber to sleep in, so what more is there to say? Our temperatures are checked daily, and we've had several swabs taken, with the negative results continuing their winning streak. And as for meals, we get them. Food is brought to the room three times a day, with the offerings for lunch and dinner looking like this:

I've been opting for the "Western-style" breakfasts, which consist of five slices of white bread, three packets of sliced cheese and two jam packets, plus a carton of white milk. Morning after morning after morning. Overall, the food has been edible, plus it helps that my wife has a cousin living in Suzhou 苏州 who has been able to supplement our rations with milk teas and snacks (ordering drinks and food from outside is allowed). Still, I'm looking forward to having some variety when we finally get to Beijing.

So that's about it for now. After getting to our assigned residence in Beijing, we'll be busy getting things set up, and familiarizing ourselves with the strict coronavirus protocols in the capital city. And as a friend already in China puts it, the realities of the the zero COVID policy mean we will still be quarantined off from the rest of the world. We may be able to freely move about Beijing, and even travel to other parts of China (and possibly get trapped in another lockdown, as happened recently in Hainan 海南), but we can forget about visiting family and friends in Taiwan, or traveling again in Japan, for at least until next spring. Any longer, and I may have to reconsider why we're here in the first place.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Hopefully it won't be the light General Westmoreland swore he could see. Until next time, when we're settled down in Beijing...we hope

* Including The Last Frontier, the total is 36 - 37 if you include the District of Columbia

** Not my first time in the airport. I spent in a weekend in Guangzhou back in March 2015