What it's like to fly into Beijing's Olympic 'bubble'

ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHSee the arrival process for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics 02:49

By Selina Wang, CNN

Updated 0553 GMT (1353 HKT) February 1, 2022

Beijing (CNN)The Beijing Winter Olympics is being hosted inside a veritable fortress — known informally as the «bubble» — that takes weeks of careful planning to successfully penetrate.

Designed to prevent the spread of Covid, the bubble is the most ambitious quarantine attempted anywhere since the start of the pandemic. The journey inside the bubble starts with a copy of the «Playbook,» an 83-page rule book described by Olympic officials as a «way of life.»The guide instructs participants to upload their daily temperature readings into an app 14 days before the Games and to isolate during that time to avoid infection. As Omicron cases are surging in Tokyo, where I live, I didn't take any chances.By the time I departed for Beijing, I was fully vaccinated, had tested negative for Covid twice, and had stocked my suitcase with face masks and snacks to eat if I failed a test and was forced to isolate alone for the entire Winter Games. CNN correspondent Selina Wang started preparing for the Beijing Olympics weeks in advance. Read MoreMaintaining social distance was easy on my almost empty ANA Airlines «special flight» from Tokyo, chartered to transport people to the Games.As we approached Beijing, smog outside the window tinted the view a dusty brown. When we landed, workers in hazmat suits were waiting on the runway to spray our luggage with disinfectant the moment it was unloaded from the plane. Walking from the plane into the terminal was like entering a medical facility, rather than an Olympic host city. Workers in white, full body protective gear, goggles, and