Every morning at 6:30, an announcement comes on, explaining that COVID testing kits are being distributed to those who will “undergo inspection,” and that breakfast may be delayed because of this process.
Three announcements later, usually significantly past the 7:30 scheduled breakfast time, we are instructed to open our doors and get our breakfasts, which are waiting for us on our doorknobs.
Each announcement is repeated three times: twice in Japanese and once in English. The English appears to be a translation, written and read by google translate or something of the like.
Every time I poke my head out of the door to gather a meal, I am greeted by a guard standing across the landing. He wears a facemask and faceshield and always seems to be looking my direction. Even when my door closed, an occasional cough gives his presence away.
At 8am, temperatures are taken and recorded online. If I forget, by 9:15, the “call center” staff call me through a phone which sits on my desk; this and the guard are the only forms of human interaction I have with the 31 floors of the “specific facilities.”
Between 11:03 and 11:08, an email from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare arrives, asking me again about my temperature and the appearance of any key symptoms. Apparently, the “specific facilities” and the ministry don’t share information.
Around 11:30, the intercom blares the lunch distribution announcement, telling us that lunch will be arriving, but that our doors are not to be opened until further instruction.
All meals (except when my request for vegan lunches is honored), follow the same format: a dessert and salad in a small white bottomed plastic tray, followed by larger black tray with 4 separate partitions, portioning out a carbohydrate (usually rice), a protein and a few sides. Dinner comes with bottled green tea and breakfast and lunch come with bottled water.
Early on, I learn that alcohol, like smoking, is strictly prohibited. On day two, I order snacks from a supermarket. A few minutes before my purchases are brought to my door, the call center calls me; they’d rummaged through my purchase and returned my single can of beer.
Around 5:15 an announcement pronounces that dinner distribution has begun. Early on during my stay, this triggers anticipation, but gradually this feeling dampens as I begin to lose my appetite from lack of movement.
Around 6pm the last announcement of the day takes place; telling us to open our doors to get our dinner from our doorknobs. The phone, intercom and email go quiet for around 12 hours, until 6:30 the following morning when I learn that my breakfast may be delayed because COVID kits will be distributed to those “undergoing inspection.”
(1) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. “Border Enforcement Measures to Prevent the Spread of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).” Accessed June 10, 2021. https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page4e_001053.html.