Zeng Ping said he had never been so fussy about his temperature.

"I cannot get too tired or too excited. Emotion and psychological pressure may cause a temperature rise," said Zeng, who is under quarantine in a hotel after arriving in Beijing from Mexico on the same Shanghai-bound flight as a Mexican later confirmed to have contracted A/H1N1 flu.

Three times a day for the past three days, a nurse came to his room and took his temperature. "The most stressful moment was perhaps when the nurse told me how high my temperature was," he said.

Zeng, in his 50s and the deputy director of the China Today magazine's Latin America bureau in Mexico City, was among the 166 passengers who were on the Mexico City-Shanghai flight with the flu patient and who stayed on the Chinese mainland.

All the passengers, who were later tracked down in 18 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, have been on a seven-day quarantine. Fifteen of them, including Zeng, have been quarantined in Beijing since last Saturday.

Zeng said he was woken up by phone calls from Beijing's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at about 4 am on Saturday and learned that health workers were on their way to his home.

"I was not surprised at all. I've already received phone calls from the district CDC asking whether I was fine the day before," he said.

On Friday night, the 25-year-old Mexican man, who arrived in Hong Kong via Shanghai aboard flight AM098, was confirmed as being infected with A/H1N1 flu virus.

Zeng said he did not know how close he was sitting on the plane to the patient. "I wore a mask all the way from Mexico to China. All the passengers as well as crew members did the same," he said.

An ambulance took Zeng to the Beijing Ditan Hospital, one of the key hospitals in Beijing treating SARS patients in 2003, where he met other passengers.

"We looked at each other and smiled. It's such a unusual reunion," he said.

Zeng and other passengers only stayed in the hospital for half a day. At around 6 pm Saturday, they were moved to the Guomenlu Hotel, which was only 200 meters away from the hospital, in separate ambulances after none of them was found to have A/H1N1 flu symptoms.

"I am isolated in a standard two-bed hotel room. The hotel is more than 10 years old. Facilities are little bit old. But I feel more relax here than in the hospital," he said.

Zeng said the hotel provided buffet for lunch on Sunday and they were allowed to pick up food in the hotel restaurant and have lunch in room, but later they were asked to stay in their rooms.

Every day in the morning, they were provided with a list of about 20 dishes ranging from fish, seafood, meat and vegetables, from which they were free to choose for lunch and supper. Food was be delivered to their rooms.

Besides 10 Chinese, 10 Mexicans were also under quarantine in the hotel. Five of the Mexicans were aboard the flight AM098 and came to Beijing via Shanghai. The Beijing health authorities say the other five were also from Mexico. But they didn't say when andhow they got to Beijing.

Deng Xiaohong, deputy head of the Beijing health bureau, said the hotel prepared Western food, English menu, computers with English system and DVD players for the Mexican guests.

"Staff stationed in the hotel also bought toys for the kids of the Mexican family," Deng said.

Zeng is now publishing a journal about his life in quarantine on www.china.com.cn and is seriously considering compiling the journal into a book.

"Surfing the Internet, following news and writing stories for the website. These are the things I spent most time on," he said.