contrarianarchon

Japan drives on the left, so in streams of people, they tend to walk on the left. Unless they're walking on the right to face oncoming traffic, or are standing on the escalator in Osaka (which for some reason went to the right), or randomly ended up on the right. But mostly they're on the left.

Taiwan drives on the right, so people walk on the right, and after 3 months of doing things the Japanese way, it takes effort to adhere to local custom, and I still find myself going on the left "to be polite."

You might wonder why I just don't fall back to US habits. But the US rarely has pedestrians dense enough to need stream efficiency, outside of some escalators and airport slidewalks. Even where sidewalks are congestion, like in Manhattan, my impression is mostly of interleaved chaos.

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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...

I decided it was time to leave my walkable radius. Took train to Taipei Main, as that seemed quick and promising. Main is rather large and confusing but I eventually made it to the surface. Walking south a bit took me to 228 Peace Park; the '228' refers to something in Taiwanese history that I should look up. Park includes the National Museum, which is said to be really good and is cheap (NT$ 30, basically US$1) but I need to get up earlier for it. Park was nice. Album! ( Read more... )

I made the previous, grumbling, entry this morning. I could have mentioned that despite various noises, I got passable sleep 2 nights in a row, but didn't think of it.

This afternoon I got out, and had a pleasant time, perhaps because I mostly avoided traffic. ( Read more... )

In the US, small apartments are divided between '1BR' (one bedroom, separated from anything else especially the kitchen) and 'studios' (one big room, apart from the bathroom; fridge noise and cooking grease can waft to your bed.) Japan has finer grain: '1R' (studio), '1K' (door between bedroom and kitchen; kitchen is probably a kitchenette in the entranceway; you take food to your bedroom or eat standing), '1DK' (the kitchen area is big enough for a dining table), '1LDK' (I suspect blurry boundaries, but notionally an even bigger common area -- room for a couch? -- and maybe a counter walling off the kitchen.) I had the impulse to classify my housing. No promises of this being interesting to anyone but me.

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