Festivals are a keystone of the Chinese calendar, and the Mid-Autumn Festival ranks high on the list. A celebration of the summer’s harvest and a thanksgiving to the moon—a symbol of fertility and bounty—the festival is characterized by bright paper lanterns and mooncakes. For weeks before the festival, local bakeries will start turning out these handheld pastries, filled with a smooth lotus seed paste or a dense red bean paste, and surrounded by a thin pastry "skin." Try a snowskin mooncake (made with a mochi-like glutinous rice flour) with lotus paste and a salted egg yolk in the center. The neighborhood will shut down along Grant Avenue between California and Broadway, giving way to parades, cultural performances, way more food than you probably need to eat, cooking demos and the 2nd annual Dog Talent & Costume Show. The whole thing culminates with the White Crane Dragon Parade, a bucket-list must-see for many.