All entering Taiwan must currently undertake a mandatory 15 day (14 night) stay in a government-mandated hotel. The good thing is you can choose your hotel and room size. The bad thing is there ain’t much stock left in Taipei, and the rooms are EXPENSIVE. We are paying SGD 340 per night, with 3 meals. Multiply that by 14 nights and it’s a small fortune.

We are staying in a +/- 53 sqm studio room with 2 ‘balconies’ and an oversized bathroom with Jet Spa. Being in quarantine, there are no laundry facilities, only laundry powder is provided, so I find a ‘hack’ and use the jet spa bath as a washing machine!

The combined living dining room is reasonably spacious, and there is a work desk with office chair and sofa. It’s actually a great space for daily yoga sessions.

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The room is advertised with the balconies, but they are both enclosed with a window that opens. This is a really dissapointing reality as we specifically wanted to be able to be ‘outside’ and get fresh air and sunlight. Instead the room is quite dark, with no direct sunlight entering the room, and we are living in artificial light during waking hours.

The view from the ‘balcony’ is narrow, but it’s great to see something outside during the 15 days of isolation. I am lucky to capture preparations for Taiwan’s National Day as well!

Our rate includes 3 meals a day and they can be anything from MacDonalds or MOS Burger for breakfast to a high-end hotel’s restaurant for dinner. It’s great for the first couple of days but then gets really monotonous. All I want is a piece of toast and some cereal for breakfast, and some fish and salad for lunch/dinner. But most of the food is very high in calories, oily, and quite unhealthy when there is little opportunity for proper exercise. The pics below are the best of the bunch.

Regardless of how nice a hotel room is, when you are stuck in it for 15 days straight, it becomes your prison, and I couldn’t be happier to leave. Good bye!