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This means that the during this time, the hotel can only serve returnees from Hong Kong and no other customers, and inbound travelers can’t stay at any other hotels or their homes for the quarantine period (that’s TWENTY-ONE days, making Hong Kong’s quarantine period the longest in the world. I only hope you never find yourself at an airplane check-in counter, desperately searching for a flight that isn’t three flights totaling nearly 24 hours of flight time – which of course ended up being the “best” flight, sweating under two masks and a pair of fogged-up glasses, calculating the time you’d taken a COVID sample in Boston, and feverishly confirming if the test would still be valid by the time you boarded your flight from LA to Hong Kong a day and a half later. This cost me: 1) An extra 1-2 days of delays and flight time; 2) Rebooking my hotel for a day later.

A few days ago, I flew from sunny Hong Kong, where the weather was still in the 70s F (21-24C C), and just two weeks ago, I was on a boat on the way to Lamma, drifting lazily down sandy shores on unlimited glasses of sangria. the kindness of a friend had delivered into my possession a face shield – a wide square of plastic that I stretched over my forehead and over my entire face, safe from any stray drops of liquid. But as soon as an entire horde of Japanese high schoolers began carrying out what I can only explain as a very synchronized form of flailing of the limbs and tossing of the hair that, I realized that there was no way I could have been watching any version of an award-winning movie, ever. For the twentieth time since I’d woken from my bed in Hong Kong 24 hours earlier, I washed my hands in hot soap and water.

Only this shavasana was different from any other shavasana that I’d experienced before: instead of the emphatic sheer relief that this pose used to bring at the end of a class – a definite thank goodness that’s over – These are the people who have memberships to gyms like Equinox in the US (for those uninitiated, Equinox is a very expensive gym that’s outfitted to basically be the Google of fitness clubs: restaurants on the premises, juice and smoothie bars selling spirulina shots at $10 USD a pop, and golden fountains spurting all the ionized alkanized water you can drink). On these days, I do things that make a lot of financial sense, like buy 1.5 inch-diameter Diptyque candles for $50 USD and Shiseido moisturizers and $30 USD bottles of wine instead of my regular 2-for-1 bottles for $19.99. Kind of like the time I decided that I wanted to try being raw vegan in university, or the time I avoided all carbs for the grand total of three full days, I realized that a daily intense vinyasa practice was wearing down my body, not strengthening it.

That being said, there’s a vast number of local spots reliably churning out delicious food at cheap prices, and local Sai Ying Pun food is delicious and affordable. (literally: tea restaurant, but probably more accurately described as Hong Kong-style cafes) to those of you who didn’t grow up eating things like Spam and macaroni soup and instant noodles, because you simply won’t get it. They serve all of the expected cha caan teng fare – like BBQ roast pork on rice or noodles, chicken wings, French toast, and pineapple buns, but two of their signature dishes are worth a try, especially for those unaccustomed to cha caan teng food. The default noodle for these bowls are springy alkaline wonton noodles, which have a bouncy texture rather than tender or chewy seen in other noodle types like flat rice noodles or oil noodles.