Birthday Race

Nowadays, I only watch TV for news and Amazing Race. I love this show. I even dream of joining one someday. Someday.


On my 31st birthday, a friend came up with a race for me. And I realized I may not that be ready to be in a real amazing race just yet. Although the tasks I had to do were sort of "easy" compared with what they do on the show.

So before I forget the overall experience, here's a narrative designed to bore the reader but excite me.

Task 1
I live behind the Makati fire station. I walk past it every day but I haven't given it a second look.

The first task was going down a fireman's pole without any harness. I always see firemen do this on TV and they make it look easy. But looking down on the elevation from which I'm going to slide, it took a while before I summoned enough courage to slide down the pole. But slid I did.

The fireman tried to convince me to do it again to build up my confidence just in case I need to slide down a pole again. I said “No thanks”, once is enough for me.

After doing this, I ran to the nearest MRT station.


Task 2

Slum dog moment.

Remember when Jamal knew all the answers to the questions because he already had an encounter related to the question? This task sort of felt like this. It involved looking for the biggest Christian bookstore in the country and looking for a manga-inspired bible. Just like how Jamal see his questions, this challenge was a walk in the park. I'm familiar with the bookstore since I do my Christmas shopping here. And finding the book was easy because a friend asked me about this manga before.

Task 3

This task was the most physical of all the tasks, running 10km on the treadmill. I run but just for fun. And the farthest I ran is 5 km. So being asked to run 10km was definitely a challenge for me. But ran I did but it took me almost 1.5 hours. Phew.

Task 4

With my energy spent and not having eaten anything besides a power bar and a banana, I was looking forward to this task, eating in a nice old familiar place, Chocolate Kiss with a good friend. It was a much-needed breather and my favorite beef stroganoff never tasted that good.

Task 5

After eating, I proceeded to the place where I had my first spa experience. The only challenge on this task is looking for the place since it has been seven years since I went here. I had to call a friend for directions.

All these happened from 10am to 7pm. What a good way to spend this day.