Everyone gets to celebrate their birthdays in a pandemic.  Twice.  In a row.  Whether we liked to or not—unless you’re in one of those rare places on earth that COVID-19 has yet reached.  With that said, here’s how I spent my birthday this year.

The good thing about my birthday this year compared to the previous one is the presence of vaccines.  With the majority of adults in Metro Manila vaccinated, new cases have been steadily dropping resulting in the easing of restrictions.  This meant that all establishments can now reopen, albeit on a lower capacity, and people can do a lot more things.  But still no social gatherings or parties for me yet.

To make my birthday a little bit more “special,” I decided to catch the sunset by the bay.  I actually hesitated as it rained that afternoon and stayed cloudy for the most part, but since I don’t have anything else planned, I decided to push through.  I didn’t run all the way to the bay area though as originally planned and took public transportation as far as I can due to time constraints.  Still, I was able to do a 3K easy run to get to the bayfront.

The bayfront was packed when I arrived.  The sun was already low on the horizon so I had to find some gaps where I can watch the sunset and take some photos.  Fortunately, there’s still some social distancing up front so I was still able to see the sun set on the horizon and not behind people’s heads.  The mountains across the bay were quite clear that day, too.

The gym I used to workout in around the area was also open so like in my good old running days, I was able to clean up and change clothes there before I went about to do some malling. But I pulled back when I saw just how many people were in the mall! It actually looked like it was a scene before the pandemic!

I may be considered fully vaccinated but I won’t expose myself more than necessary, so I left the mall as soon as I’m done checking the store I was after, and started walking towards the nearest MRT station. Luckily, there’s hardly any people in the mall along the way so I was able to have my early dinner there. As you might expect, I was already famished at the time from all the walking!

There was still some time to squeeze in some extra physical activities as I arrived home, and some leftovers as well from my early dinner to balance the calories lost.  I guess I ate as much calories as I burned that day, if not more!

Hopefully, we’re all out of the pandemic by next year! Let’s all still exercise caution despite the easing of restrictions so that we avoid new cases from rising again.