How I Ate My Way Through 14 Days in a Korean Quarantine Facility

Last year, because of the Pandemic Covi d-19, we all had the experience of isolation from the government or from personal desires. The lonely experience that I was most caught was a combination of both. In accordance with the strict rules of traveling, he was a 1 4-day quarantine in South Korea, and traveled to his hometown of his hometown to visit the Guardians for the first time in seven years in December 2020.

At a quarantine facility in the Fouhan, located in 170 miles southeast of Seoul, the sea was visible, but there was no furniture, a chair, a table, and a small freezer. I slept on the floor and was not allowed to go for a walk. Such awareness, in fact, I can overlap my own parents who have made it tolerate until two weeks. This incredibly sweet and rich food was thrown into a chair in front of the door three times a day. Not a knock, the signal let me know her arrival.

The following are a 1 4-day diary of exhaustion and unusually rich flavor at every day at Korean isolation.

Day 1: The Journey

After a 1 3-hour flight, the sense of time has been somewhat weaker, but many journey and procedures are still waiting. Temperature inspection, invoice for displaying my quarantine address and contact information, and long cardboard office work. The employees call the institution's number and make a call in case they need to confuse me. Currently, those who land in Korea are required to load the quarantine application to their personal mobile terminals, and bureaucrats can track my place.

After completing the questionnaire, telephone, and interview, I finally started landing, but I had to wait another hour to get on a special bus to the station (to prevent the indoor infection of colonovirus, foreign travelers public transportation. The use of institutions is forbidden). I decided to eat at the airport until the remaining trails. A Korea n-style bibimbap with a beautiful copper bowl is a treat with three benches and soups. The thick rice momomo is perfectly seasoned with chopped pepper and onion, and it smells sesame oil when mixed with steamed rice. This is exactly what I really need and to realize that I have finally arrived in Korea. I take a picture with this beautiful copper dining room and send it to three guardian deities.

My first meal at the airport was Korean bibimbap.

After traveling by bus, I was taken to a separate building where I spent the time before boarding the train to Phohang. This big city is in North Gyeongsang Province, about 169 miles south of Seoul. On another occasion, I remember seeing my guardians in the distance.

On the high-speed train to Phohang, there was only one other traveler going through quarantine, and we were given the entire carriage. Policemen in hazmat suits were constantly guarding us, pushing aside local residents who tried to sit with us. We were like a walking disease. I am grateful to everyone for taking such serious measures, but the vigilance I have witnessed from people I have spoken to in the past 24 hours has been more intense than I had hoped for.

When I finally arrived at Phohang station, I was greeted by a district health official still clad in hazmat suits from head to toe, who acknowledged my information. And I finally got to meet the founder who had been waiting for my return. I rush to him and try to respond as strongly as I can, but they won't let me. In fact, all I can do is shake the hand of this insignificant candidate from 10 feet away.

The Guardians and I, smiling nervously with our friends, boarded the car to our destination, escorted by the staff. This seemingly endless journey is almost over. It's already been more than 30 hours since I left my living space in New York, and I feel fat and tired. I signed the last questionnaire that said, "During quarantine, I cannot leave my room for you," and for 14 days I lived in a small one-room apartment with a desk and a telecom. I was up until 5am thinking about dinner.

Day 2: Dosirak

First, the afternoon test. I had to be tested before the quarantine battle was over, but my late arrival gave me a chance to wait for a good day. My mother agreed with the health center, so I was arrested. The driver arrived, and I felt like quite a VIP. After that, some patient nasal secretions were analyzed, and a free pack of KF-94 disinfectant for hands and masks was sent. When I returned to my room, a gift was waiting for me. My very first dinner, tied to a snow-white plastic bundle and placed on a special chair for my number in the hallway.

At the beginning of the pandemic, dangerous concerns licked the quarantine bags issued by the Korean government. Inside were instant sweet noodles, canned tuna, finished soup, rice, and almost everything else. It was actually a delicious thing that provided lunch to other quarantine facilities. For example, the unfortunate children at the New York Institute received a plain salad and warm orange juice. Instead of relaxing in an Airbnb or a government-appointed hotel, I decided to quarantine at a resort owned by POSCO, where the founder works. It was still a quarantine facility for employees and their families, with a cafeteria where I couldn't eat.

The power rules were simple: I was called three times a day, and I moved around with a kind of gent box, called a dosirac in Korea, on a chair near my room.

This is the only time you are allowed to open the door during quarantine.

I prefer dosirac, but the first meal is great. I wait for rice, and I have the opportunity to be several banks, but this dosirac is premium: 4 banks, 2 main dishes, a cup of rice and soup, one set at a time. When I come back from the test, they have already made my lunch and breakfast, for example, I actually make them commit to make a quarantine banquet of raw squid GI puligal, acute soup of testicles and cranks with rice in Polish, spicy stewed chicken, spiced spinach, fish tack, soy stewed potatoes and chicken, crispy spring rolls, spiced dried squid, garlic stalks, radish, kimchi and acute beef soup with radish. All for me.

My first quarantine dosyrac is stewed in Polish, spicy chicken seasoned with spinach, fish skewers and rherst traves, stuffed bin, beef and radish soup, and most others.

The docilack set was on a chair for a certain period of time, so it had already cooled while I was recording the dishes. But I don't care. I feel spoiled by this big election. Simmer the milk in a spooned rice. The fish is spinned and sharp, and it is exquisitely entangled with rice. Without a break, reach out to spinach, one of your favorite Banganjangian, and then reach into a sharp, crisp kimchi, beef and radish soup.

I am very grateful that most of the government quarantine packs are composed of fast food side dishes, and that they can actually eat something close to home meals. It's still the first day, but I'm already getting sick. It seems eternal for another 12 days. For example, a family is here for hunting.

Day 3: The Care Package

Only two days have passed since the isolation started, but who is thinking? My morning starts with a body temperature test and an application record. I'm not paying attention to the fact that I am in Korea, for example, thousands of kilometers from my family, I haven't seen it. Even after returning to New York, the Guardians are still in contact with FaceTime.

The Guardian has decided to visit me, which means that I can shout at them from the second floor balcony. When I try to do something from the market, they recognize me. I have all the lists to try such a thing, but the return is to ask, "Anything that is actually appetizing!"

The family can leave the luggage at the reception booth at my isolation facility, and the workers will bring them to the room. When I was reported on the phone, "I received my luggage," I opened the door and waited to see some things. Rich is the word of their love. A large bundle given to satisfy the family's family is waiting for me.

I can hear my mother's screams from the outside! James! Show your son's personality! "! "I ran to the balcony and shouted like this! Why did you buy so many? How should I eat it?" Shouted. I took a few photos and videos, and then made it a family treasure, and then a friend. "I want to see you!" My mother shakes her head and denies the finished story. "12 days left," she shouts. "You've been expecting it for seven years, so for example, I'm going back to Korea, for example, it's not just good!"

I call my mother "I love you!" from the balcony.

I go back home and start unpacking. The first mysterious black plastic bag contains gukbapbegi, Korean twisted doughnuts dusted with sugar. Warm and chewy, it's a precious reminder that I'm really in Korea. You won't find anything like this in New York. Canned mandarins for tea. From inside the first plastic bag - a bunch of kettekette leaves or a railing turned three times. There are at least 50 kettekette leaves and salad that I expect to eat with the dosirak, followed by a pack of chokballs (Korean for stewed pig's trotters), a whole nappa cabbage, a bunch of Korean gul (tangerines), a testicle, crackers, and beer.

I purposely didn't melt anything. After this, they call me and offer to arrest my dosirak. Every time, I'm curious to see what kind of banquet there is, but in the end I cancel the banquet and feast on jockstraps. For example, as I had in a restaurant, I have enzyme salty shrimp, ssamyan, soy sauce with basabi, cabbage, ketnip and salad latuk, literally a jacket with attached collagen and chewy structure. This jokbal is characterized by being cut diagonally, and I ate it with wasabi soy sauce. My way of enjoying jokbal is to line up the giant suckers. As a result, I take a giant salad with a few pieces of jokbal, add junction and fermented salty shrimp. I wrap all this up in a giant bundle and put it in my mouth. I put a chair on the heated floor to warm my butt and eat a giant jokbal pine while watching a Korean program. At this point, I think that quarantine isn't so bad after all.

My plate is piled with fermented shrimp paste, ssamjang, basabi, soy sauce, and lettuce and rail leaves. Let me explain my quarantine room. There is no bed or sofa, just a floor. There is no separate kitchen, only a small freezer. In Korean culture, it is permissible to do something on the floor. In fact, as I later realized in the quarantine facility, they deliberately removed the bed to simplify the task of cleaning the quarantine officer's departure for themselves. At the same time, the melting snow shows a cool image against the sea.

Days 4-7: Timelessness

Every morning, we look at the sunrise and listen to the sound of a pleasant wave. Even if the outside is cold, open the door and go out to the balcony. Looking out of the window, I seem to be in a beautiful nursing home that I can never buy, not a small room. I feel incredibly grateful. Some of the isolation facilities in the state do not even have windows.

This is a simple bed at my isolation facility, and you can see a beautiful sunset.

If you are dissatisfied, there is no microwave. If you don't eat Doshirak at the same time, you will eventually eat it cold. It was normal for the first few days, but now I'm starting to get tired of warm food. A pleasant scent. The warmth of steam. The tongue burning when drinking a hot soup. It is a feeling that can not be obtained with room temperature food.

However, I am grateful that the sofa is quite delicious and at least similar to it, and I eat it. Normally, at 9 am when breakfast is over, there is not much appetite, so we often combine breakfast and lunch and hold a large banquet like a hal f-celebration in isolation. Sti r-fried garlic soy sauce on the scapula, squid salted, chicken spicy cake, stewed tofu, sesame champloo, dried squid overnight, sti r-fried squid, sti r-fried kimchi and beef spicy, lettuce and radish soup. 。 Among these benches, the protagonist was squid salty. This is a julier gal in the category of salted marine products, and you have to eat rice with it. And with a large amount of cocastetal obtained from my mother, make a big trousers for each bun. Put a spoonful of rice, a strong chicken, spinach, and kimchi on the palms of 3 or 4 cocuste leaves. I usually put a lot of elastic hair like a tennis ball.

Breakfast is a stewed tofu, fried chicken, garlic stems, kimchi, fish skewers, rice stuffing, and jet gal.

Lunch is shiitake mushrooms, seasoned spinach, seasoned squid minced meat, minced octopus meat, and chicken.

I'm working outside and I have an unusual clock because my office is in New York. Launched a computer around midnight and work in Korea until about 8:00 in the morning. In a certain time, in the afternoon, I usually go on holidays and absorb big dinner. I eat at 5:30 pm, and if I am lucky, I fall asleep at 6:00. The routine adds my day to my days, even if it's unusual.

But my intelligence and body are inferior to their own points. When the banana screwed into a plastic package fell in my dock, I feel as if I hit a lottery. This is my first time to get fruits with food, and my eyes shine with joy. I don't understand whether I'm really looking forward to bananas or crazy. The latter, the latter.

I started using FaceTim at lunch with my mother to overcome lonely. We don't have to talk a lot with another friend, and the ingredients using Fastim help me more than anything else. The dinner that my mother personally supported was raw rice, cabbage, Todenjan (Korean miso), and seawater plants. At that store, I was blessed with 12 types of benches, six dishes, and three kinds of soups. My mother is wealthy, for example, I eat perfectly, but when my mother eats personal rice without cabbage and meat for lunch, I feel a little guilty. If you get out of the isolation, you want to eat feasts together quickly.

During a meal, he communicates with his mother on the network to distract his loneliness.

After all, I have more than 50 %, and the shelves on the freezer called the pantry are inadequate cooked rice tower, several kinds of cold soup, a lot of water, and a certain number of random basic undercover. There is tableware. There is a trash can on the veranda, because the expiration date cannot be expired on the street, which contains some containers of Doshirak's failed work. The higher the container tower, the more it is made in Doctrac near the end of my isolation period. There is no warm food yet. You can put a jig in a boiled pot, put a sharp stew, add tofu with mulberry nuts, and dream of a huge bowl with steam rising. I delusion that my mouth is burning when I ate only the belly in a hurry.

Days 8-12: The Air Fryer Miracle

Suddenly, the feeling runs. If the microwave is no good, what about fried food? Call the staff to see if you can make arrangements. The administrator said that there was a little confusion in the jurisdiction, and in a mysterious thing, there was no end, and nothing happened.

I called my mother.

I have a small aerophone that my parents do not use. My parents brought me with another luggage on the weekend, but some of them were to survive the future.

Along with a fried pot like a treasure wrapped in sil k-like red cloth, my mother put an attractive firewood in front of the oven, fearing I burn my hand. There are other delicious things. For example, there are various fried foods such as shrimp, squid, and potatoes. There are also buns, juicy and crisp Korean strawberries, delicate persimmons, horns, and fried eggs.

I warm the fried food with an aero fritter and eat it. Yes, I burn my mouth, but I'm not so happy.

The mother's package contained a variety of vegetables.

To celebrate the arrival of the aero deck, become a Korea n-style fried chicken and Korea n-style pizza. Open the canned beer from the previous luggage. I love Doslack every day, but it's a lot of fun to enjoy delivery food. At the moment of the first bite of the Korea n-style fried chicken, I am no longer exhausted by my journey and strange graphics. This is a family taste that cannot be reproduced with Korean fried chicken abroad. The crisp, juicy and sharp chicken chicken pulls me back when I was a child when I ate my brother and Korea n-style fried chicken. The s o-called "dee p-desained Chicago Pizza" contains shrimp fry, pineapple, red onion, and sweet sauce, which is unique to Korea.

As a weekend, I was able to order Korean fried chicken and pizza.

30 hours, drinking a lot of coffee so that you do not fall asleep during work, do not take a walk except to throw away trash with a narrow balcony, and deal with loneliness and narcissism that is not distracted by the other person. Everything was an unpleasant time. I looked at my face and body for hours and criticized myself. Creative people seem to exercise while isolation, but I prefer to look at others' Mukuban. Why do you always feel tired when you don't move at all? There are a lot of irregular ideas in my head, not just fun.

But while watching the sea on Sunday, Korean fried chicken and pizza are the best, drinking ice beer in pajamas. There is no more happiness. It's only a few days to stay with my family.

After all, 14 days is really no joke. I spent almost half a month in this tiny room, pampering myself with the all-important dosirak three times a day. And now, thanks to a sleepover of fried chicken and pizza, I have accumulated four dosirak that constitute a friend for a friend.

Days 13-14: Mukbang

I've eaten three dosirak in one sitting, but four? A challenge to myself. (I want to eat 16 kinds of side dishes, 8 kinds of dishes, and 4 kinds of soup. Since nothing is specified, I decided to take a guessing game. At first, I believe that by skipping meals and putting videos on public networks, one day at a time, this dinner will be a holiday that I have to divide.

I am proud of my goal of eating 4 dosirak at once.

It is useful for making tamagoyaki and reheating leftover fried chicken, but also when you need to reheat rice or soup, for example. And there are days when I don't want to eat cold dosirak, days when I regret it but can't actually eat hot noodles, days when I can't eat rice. Instead of being grateful, I find the strength to use my situation. However, in this difficult time, I try to remember that many people are fighting to get food, let alone utility. For example, Korean middle-aged aunties called ajum cook carefully for me and deliver a certain amount from a day. With a smile, I immediately eat 4 dosirak. I film myself eating the pieces. I say thank you again as I play each one.

When the desire to arrest food begins to join the brand new schedule and the daily calls from the office, the time of departure approaches. To do so, which I can officially write, I must take another test. About , the local health department arrives with me and I briefly leave my room for the first time for a certain number of months, including if this is just a passing part of the car. As expected, my analysis proves negative and I can finally be with the Guardians. Basically, all that is between us is the last night at the facility and the last holiday of the dosirak.