December 11, 2012

Do you know your blood type?  I had no idea how important knowing them is to your personality.  I so love my Chinese class as the teacher is such a deep well of all things Chinese culture.  We were learning how to say the date today and we had to say our birthdays.    Turns out that Wales and I are both Virgo's, but then the teacher said to me that my blood type must be O and that Wales was an A.  In Asian "astrology", your blood type is as important in determining your personality as is your astrology sign.  I immediately came home and did a quick on-line search...here is a link  to a site that talks about the different blood type characteristics even details the food you should eat.  Wikipedia has this to say about it.   And here is one more article about it that is a bit more flattering to my blood type.  Wales didn't know hers, but I am (totally) type O.  I've always been a fan of the horoscopes...not necessarily one to change my plans because of them, but more to help in understanding why I act certain ways and why others have certain characteristics  Since marrying an Asian, have become familiar and incorporated some of their year based signs (I'm a snake) into the above equations.  But learning about this blood type thing today was like someone finally turning over all the letters or getting my first pair of glasses.  Kinda felt like Navin Johnson in The Jerk learning about his "special purpose".   Needless to say...I plan on learning a lot more about blood types.

I mentioned we had a friend in town this week and I asked him what he wanted to do on his free evening before heading back to Seattle.  Apparently, the word has spread around the world about Taipei's Shrimping District and that is what he wanted to do.  I've detailed the wondrous experience in a previous posting, but this article details it nicely, and here is one of many YouTube clips on what it looks like.  So far, this is probably the most fun thing to do that we've found here.  Take a peek at our friend Kevin...

Boozin', smokin' and a shrimpin'.  Those two fellas in the background were so nice to us...they saw we were struggling with some of the nuances of the sport, so they gave us some of their special bait, showed us the proper way to skewer and salt the shrimps, and later, came by to slam some beer shots in celebration of our conquests.  Their Taiwanese hospitality made me forget for a few glorious moments how pissed off I get with them out on the roads. 

And here is you know who working the grill.

Good times...this should be the cover photo of the Taipei Tour Guide.