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Blossom - on our balcony Halfway through May, with the plum and cherry blossoms having finished, we are well and truly into spring.

Japanese culture and, by association, the Japanese language, is very season-focused, and there are numerous phrases and vocubulary items special to spring.

rishhun ?? is the beginning of spring. In the West, this is determined according to the spring equinox, but in Japan, it is calculated according to the pre-modern calendar, so always falls on about February 3 (February 4, this year, not March 20, which was the spring equinox.)

shungyo ?? means a spring dawn. And dawn in springtime is characterized by harugasumi ??, which is the mistiness that comes with the season.

The Tokyo Skytree with harugasumi on a shungyo Such mistiness at nighttime makes for an oborozuki ??, or "hazy moon," with all the wistfulness and romance the image invokes.

This "haziness" extends to one's state of mind, and shunmin-akatsuki-o-oboezu ??????? refers to something that happened to me this week: sleeping so well thanks to the nice not-too-cool but not-too-hot weather that you don't wake up in time. I didn't make it to the office until midday!

However, those pleasant temperatures can readily give way to a brief reversion to winter, with the sudden cold spring day being called shunkan or harusamu???.

But we seem to be past that stage now, and things are haruranman ???, i.e., spring is well and truly here and filling everything with...