Earlier this morning I went to write today's lesson and...

And...

And...

I don't know what to write!

Even as I thought this, I knew it was a ridiculous notion. Japanese is a language, and the amount of information in a language is borderline limitless. So of course there were a million potential lessons I could write. But rather than sit staring at my computer screen, I decided to step outside.

Because spring has finally hit Tokyo, and it's absolutely beautiful out today. I'll show you...

---

A Springtime Stroll Through Ota-ku

What's Ota-ku, you ask?

It's one of Japan's 23 wards.

東京都（とうきょうと）, "the Tokyo Metropolitan Area," is divided into 23 "wards," or 区（く）:

Yeah... definitely not translating all of those.

You may notice that Ota-ku is the big（大）rice field（田） ward（区）: 大田区（おおたく）.

It's also the southernmost of Tokyo's wards, home to famous locations such as Haneda Airport and Rei's hometown, 蒲田（かまた）:

It also just so happens to be the place I went for a walk today. Specifically, I walked around the southern rim of 大田区, down by where 多摩川（たまがわ //Tama River）separates it from 川崎（かわさき // Kawasaki）, which is part of 神奈川県（かながわけん / Kanagawa Prefecture）, not 東京都（とうきょうと // The Tokyo Metropolitan area）：

Place names are kind of a nightmare in Japanese. Sorry.

Less of a nightmare is the signs that you come across on a stroll through Tokyo, like this one:

That top one says:

止まれ
とまれ
Stop

This sign has always confused me, as I thought it was weird to the use imperative [command] form with 止まる（とまる // to stop; to come to a halt）. It always seemed to me that the transitive 止める（とめる // to stop [someone or something]）would be more appropriate. Maybe because I was imagining "stopping a car," and a car is an object. For example, you could say this to a taxi driver:

ここで（車を）止めてください。
ここで　（くるま　を）　とめて　ください。
Please stop the car here.
Literally: "here + で + (car + を ) + stop + please."
Note: Usually you would NOT say 車を, because it's obvious from context and therefore redundant.

But the sign is not saying to "stop something (e.g. a car)," rather it is saying that you, the person reading this, should stop. 止まれ.

Below that we have:

自転車を除く
一方通行
じてんしゃ　を　のぞく
いっぽうつうこう
One way street, except for bicycles.
Literally, Line #1: "bicycle + を + exclude"
Literally, Line #2: "one-way traffic"

Nice! Let's keep walking...

Hey look, a vending machine:

うまみ新発見。
うまみ　しんはっけん
Delicious new discovery.
Literally: "good flavor + new discovery."

This is really confusing, but umami can refer to a food simply being 美味い（うまい // tasty; delicious）or it can, less commonly, refer to the somewhat recently discovered basic taste called umami, which you can read about on this Wikipedia page. For an added bonus, you might also want to read up on how 和食（わしょく // traditional Japanese cuisine）is now a cultural world heritage. I briefly mentioned this once before, about 100 lessons back, if I'm not mistaken.

Since it's Japan, walking two more steps brings us to another vending machine. And another smattering of Japanese:

地球にやさしい
（省エネ！）
LED照明＆ヒートポンプ
ちきゅうにやさしい
（しょうエネ！）
エルイーディー　しょうめい　アンド　ヒートポンプ
Eco-friendly (low energy!) LED lighting and heat pump.
Literally, Line #1: "earth + に + nice/gentle"
Literally, Line #2: "energy conservation!"
Literally, Line #3: "LED illumination + & + heat pump."

Not a whole lot of grammar going on here, so I guess there's not much to explain. 省エネ（しょうエネ）is one of those rare words that combines kanji and katakana. The エネ is short for エネルギー, "energy."

Though there are several, the only other kanji-katakana word that comes to my mind right now is アル中（アルちゅう // alcoholism; an alcoholic）. This one is a contraction and combination of アルコール, "alcohol," and 中毒（ちゅうどく //addiction; poisoning）.

Oh, and if you're wondering why a vending machine has a "heat pump," it's because many vending machines in Japan serve both hot and cold drinks. So you can have hot coffee and tea (in a can or plastic bottle) on a cold day, and vice versa on a hot day.

Let's keep walking.

The cherry blossoms are already disappearing:

A sight both bittersweet and beautiful.

Here's a sign we can read. We just learned this one:

Using the last sign we saw with 自転車を除く（じてんしゃ　を　のぞく）, it doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to see that this is saying, "No entry, except for bikes." In other words, don't drive your car down this alley.

One thing that's not so fun about street signs, though, is that 90% of them are just rules. Here's another one:

横断禁止
おうだん　きんし
No crossing.
Literally: "crossing + prohibition."

So yeah, don't cross the street there... unless you want to get run over.

Japanese everywhere!

Let's just zoom in on the top part of that banner. It says:

視界を広げる。毎日が広がる。
しかい　を　ひろげる。　まいにち　が　ひろがる。
Expand your vision. Expand your world.
Semi-literally: "Expand your field of vision. Every day will get bigger.
Literally: "field of vision + を + expand. + every day + が + gets longer/bigger [spreads out]."

Marketing copy always tries to be clever. In this case they're doing so by playing with the transitive verb 広げる（ひろげる // to spread; to expand; to enlarge; to widen; to broaden; to unfold; to open; to unroll）and it's intransitive sister, 広がる（ひろがる // to spread [out]; to extend; to stretch; to reach to; to fill [e.g. a space]）.

I think the ideal translation would be something that elegantly sits between my translation and the semi-literal translation, but my brain is not willing to come up with it at the moment. Oh well.

Anyways, yeah... today was a beautiful day.