Older son’s uni term is fast approaching and we have been preparing for this for the last few months as uncertainties abound. He will begin his 3 years towards an Oxford Economics and Management degree.
His school starts in early Oct and we were prepared to do the compulsory 2 weeks quarantine as S’pore was not in the UK’s list of exempt countries. It does not help that the UK has been throwing a lot of countries in EU out of this list as the 2nd wave started to hit countries like Spain and France.
He was suppose to quarantine in his college in Keble and while I had booked an apartment about 4 km from the city center. I would then extend another 2 weeks in Oxford before heading home for another 2 weeks of quarantine in a S’pore hotel.
Then surprisingly, on the day before we were supposed to leave, S’pore suddenly made it into UK’s exempt list. It was too late for us to change the departure date as the tickets had to be issued a week before the flight. I had also paid for the accommodations a few days before.
We decided to proceed as planned as there was no point to delay the inevitable trip anymore. The upside is that the probability of him coming back in Dec has increased by 50% as he will not need to quarantine himself when he returns to the UK in mid-Jan.
The departure day on Friday was a long day as various family members and friends wished him well for his new adventure. The flight was also a late-night 11330 pm one. It was quite a full flight of 93 passengers where it normally would be at least 200+ because of the required social distancing restrictions. All the middle seats were left empty and wearing a mask during the whole 13 hours long journey was compulsory.
It was a relatively uneventful trip and the flight attendants had to avoid any unnecessary contact with the passengers. It was almost like taking a long bus journey. We tried to watch movies to keep awake as a strategy to reduce the jet lag as the UK is 7 hours behind S’pore time.
We landed at 0555 in the morning and the immigration process was surprisingly fast as there were few flights and we could use our bio-metric passports. There was also no need for the usual stamping of the passports… We collected our luggage and were out of the airport within 35 minutes. We had booked an MPV for a direct trip to Oxford as we wanted to avoid any delays or to use public transport.
Since the new addition of S’pore into the UK exempt list took effect only at 4 am on 19 Sep, 2 hours before we land, I really could not imagine our luck. The same thing happened 2 months ago when S’pore moved to phase 2 on 19 Jun, just a day before my younger son’s and my birthday! I immediately asked my father in law to buy the following 4D numbers – 1919 for the next 2 weeks 🙂
Since we do not need to quarantine ourselves in Oxford anymore, we dropped our bags in his new room and went to the Westgate mall to buy some of the stuff he needed. Once he was settled down by noontime, I proceeded to call a cab to head to my apartment.
While we were used to wearing masks whenever we were outside in S’pore, it is still not compulsory in the UK. Most people who are outside do not wear masks. But when indoors, most shops would require masks before allowing anyone in.
The other thing I noticed was that places like Oxford and the place I was putting up in Headington were so cosmopolitan. I see so many non-whites like myself and others from Africa and South Asia who have already been in the UK for many years. It could be due to the colonization of many countries by the UK for hundreds of years and their more open attitude towards immigrants.
We intend to rent a car and drive around the countryside while avoiding large cities like London. We continue to wear our masks when outside. More students are starting to come into Oxford as term starts soon.
The student who is in the room next to my son had checked in a few days earlier and is doing his 2 weeks quarantine now. Ironically, he is from California. He told my son that he is glad to breath clean air again after the terrible forest fires there that turned the skies orange.
The second wave of the virus is starting to hit the UK and the numbers are increasing. The government acknowledge that the country cannot afford to have another full-scale lockdown again as this will really decimate the already weak economy. They are leaning towards a series of tightening measures which they could name as Circuit Breakers. LOL moment as it was exactly what S’pore called them and breaking the stages into Phase 1, 2 and eventually 3.
Less than 50 days to the US elections and the Myanmar virus situation had skyrocketed to more than 10x within weeks. We are in for an explosive Q4 into an annus horribilis 2020 which everyone wished it was a nightmare which we could wake up from and forget about this year totally.
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