Quarantine! Pt.3

The phone buzzed. It was the Japanese government demanding a report. Every day, for the entire two weeks of quarantine, I received two or three notifications to confirm my whereabouts. The app, of course, required a constant internet connection and a reasonably quick response. I was never told how quickly I should confirm my location, but you can guess that the best answer was 'immediately'. The operation of this one app was simple and clear - when you received a message, you had to press the button in the app, which was reporting my GPS data. Of course, even such a simple app could break down.... One evening I received a notification as usual, but to my dismay - sending a location was impossible. Error. I checked again. Error. And again in 5 and 15 minutes... After half an hour I started to panic slightly. I didn't know at the moment if that could cause my visa to be revoked, but...  When I landed in Japan I was told that if I did not cooperate with location reporting, my name and image could be made public picturing me as a criminal. And all in all, this was what I feared - to be put next to criminals for such a seemingly trivial matter.

I wrote an email to app admins and went to bed full of anxiety.... fortunately, the next day it turned out that the failure was on the side of the application servers, and no consequences will be drawn for this one incident....

The second 'interesting' application that I had to use was Covid-19 contact tracker. App was scanning the presence of other phones in the area via bluetooth - so you could check if you had accidental contact with an infected person. The application itself was nothing new to me, there was a similar solution in Poland. What was interesting was the poor machine translation. As we all know, such translations are not always accurate and can sometimes give ridiculous results. For example, in order to check whether one had close contact with an infected person, one had to select "Check contact closure" (which was supposed to read "check close contacts"). On the other hand, the section for registering a positive coronavirus test read "If you feel positive for the new coronavirus, cooperate with positive registration..." :)

But enough about the coronavirus - I promised to write more about the hotels! 

The disposable pyjamas were a pleasant surprise.

Initially, I thought that hotel I was staying in is just like every other I have been to so far - nothing to surprise me. However, I was really impressed by the amenities. There were some standard ones such as soap, gel, shampoo, set of towels, but also: disposable toothbrushes, miniature tubes of toothpaste, a brush, disposable razors, slippers, and (!) disposable pyjamas. What's even better, everything was replaced on daily basis. It made me feel a bit sad - throwing out disposable toothbrush every day seemed like a waste of plastic. However, all these amenities make travelling in Japan so much easier. Of course, what I've described doesn't always have to be the rule, and before booking a hotel, it's worth finding out exactly what services the hotel offers. The one I stayed in also had other facilities: laundry, automatic currency exchange, ATMs, massage services and even a grocery shop. In the case of the latter, I was initially dubious about the prices - I feared they would be much higher than in regular stores. Fortunately, prices turned out to be pretty much standard...

What surprised me a bit were the famous Japanese toilets. Sometimes such toilets have more features than one might imagine. Many models have a heated seat, a washing function, and even play a melody or water noise if one feels uncomfortable (this is especially true for toilets in public places). Some models, additionally can adjust the amount of water to be flushed. Truly, a person can feel as if they are a bit backward. And speaking of the bathroom.... A thing that may also be a bit unusual for Europeans are Japanese bathtubs. Both those in hotels and the one in my apartment are equipped with a system for heating water - so as to waste as little as possible. How does this make sense? It derives largely from a different approach to bathing. Traditionally, before taking a bath, a Japanese person would first take a shower during which proper washing and cleaning would take place. And only after such shower, one would enter a warm bath. A similar system also operates in the Onsen, but about that some other time....

My quarantine time was slowly coming to an end. All that remained was for me to check out of the hotel and wait for the taxi to arrive. So far, I had seen Japan as if through a keyhole. The real adventure was just beginning!

Being outside, I could finally feel the local climate. And what is the weather like in Japan? What is the rainy season and why do the Japanese wear umbrellas even when it's not raining? I will tell you more about that next time! ;)