Ad Astra Per Aspera

Have I mentioned that I'm around the corner (and across an intersection) from a Taoist temple here? Yesterday (Saturday) at 6 AM I'd heard some music, and later fireworks, but hadn't gone out. Tonight around 8:40 PM I heard it again, and quickly went out. Album

I don't know if a procession had actually marched around some distance, but what I saw when I got there was like the end of a small parade, with people in giant costumes, the portable tabernacle or whatever, a barrel of fire (did not photograph well, there's just a glow). Also a brief attack of fireworks, some line of things on the ground that were set off, loud bright and smokey.

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I looked at more bicycles today, and saw some with Japan's over-wheel center kickstands. At first I thought they had O-locks too, but I didn't see any more, and now I wonder if I mistook rim/caliper brakes for an O-lock. I saw two bikes that were locked to something, but most are freestanding; maybe half have a cable lock through a wheel, so someone can't trivially ride off with it; the rest have no visible lock, maybe just counting on low crime and looking like rusty pieces of shit.

I went to a pho stall and pointed at a photo that looked nice. It turned out to have "duck blood tofu", blood coagulated into big cubes with a consistency like that of tofu. I ate one cube and part of the other. It was not deeply repulsive; if I hadn't known it was blood I might have eaten it without blinking. Knowing... I decided to stop and see if my stomach would revolt from new food or a surplus of iron.

I forget if I've talked about it in the travel series, but a distinctive feature of Japanese housing is balconies. I think basically every unit above ground level has one, even if it's shallow, a space (1) to hang your laundry outside and (2) so someone can install and maintain your heat pump compressor without risk of death or needing special safety equipment.

I haven't been looking up much, distracted by traffic and shops, or blocked by covered walkways, but today I did look up (starting from a park.) Album. And no, balconies are not ubiquitous here, and compressors are often just extruded from walls, with no obvious access.

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Discussion on Youtube opened my eyes to something: the US, tofu is largely considered an alternative to meat, something used by vegetarians and vegans. But in Asia, according to the comments, it's often complementary to meat. Most famous example in the US might be ma po tofu, recipes for which are often "2 parts tofu, 1 part ground pork." At Philly's SE Asian market, one of the skewers I bought was a mix of fish cake and tofu. And just now, I had some miso noodle soup, that was pork slices, meatball, fried egg, and tofu (not much tofu, less than anything else).

Whether Asian cooks are motivated more by "meat is expensive, stretch with tofu" or "tofu is good for you", I don't know. Today's tofu didn't seem abundant enough to count as stretching...