It may come as a surprise to many outside of Japan that most streets here don't have a name. The notable exception are main streets, expressways and toll roads. But your ordinary residential street will always be nameless.
Why is that?
Japan uses a highly complex, area-based addressing system dating back to the Meiji era (1868 - 1912).
Towns are typically subdivided into smaller areas with names, and then into smaller blocks with numbers, and finally into individual lots with numbers. So you end up with postal addresses that not only are quite long compared to other countries, but contain a lot of numbers.
To make things more interesting, lots are numbered as they are created, so they may not be in order. When looking for an address, you have to find the right block and then walk around the block until you find the right house. There is no concept of numbering along a street.
Our own house even has a fourth number, so the full numbering is '2-15-12-1', and what's even more confusing is that although ours is a house built at the same time with 3 other houses to the left and right of us, the numbers are not sequential.
In today's technological age, there are always Google Maps and Sat Nav, of course, which take you (more or less) to the desired destination.
Even so, it can be a challenge to find the right address, for instance for delivery drivers. As our next-door neighbours are also an international couple, the Uber Eats or Amazon delivery personnel often get confused. They may have narrowed the address down to our row of four houses, but then have to depend on the name plate at the entrance (as the houses often don't display the numbers) for the final step. And since both names are foreign (albeit completely different), they routinely get it wrong and attempt to deliver to the wrong house. If someone's at home, the delivery guy can be re-directed to the right house. Otherwise there is the occasional package-swapping between the two families. Good thing we are on good terms with each other...
Taxi drivers also don't have it easy here. I always marvelled at London cabbies and the so-called legendary 'Knowledge', which requires them to memorise 25,000 streets and 100,000 landmarks within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross, taking them up to four years and about a dozen interviews until they finally qualify.
Not so in Japan. Here, in order to become a licenced taxi driver, you need to pass a test with 95 questions (in 50 minutes), with a score of at least 90%. While I heard that the questions are by no means easy, nobody will expect from a Tokyo cab driver to memorise thousands of landmarks and street names (which don't exist anyway...).
Before cabs were equipped with navigation systems as standard, telling the driver your address would have resulted in nothing more than a shrug, as you might as well have given him an address on planet Mars.
So the usual routine was to guide the cabbie by giving him directions. Which was fine as long as you knew where you were going...
It wasn't an unusual occurrence that I took a cab to a place I had never visited before and was promptly asked to give him directions - or asked which route might be the fastest. As if I were to know...
And even when I took a cab home after a night out drinking, not quite intoxicated enough to have forgotten where I lived, but too inebriated to speak clearly and properly keep track of where we were, the issue presented a bit of a challenge.
Luckily these days, the driver can tap the address into the navigation system, although in most cases they still prefer you to give them directions. But at least the technology can assist if needed.
Unlike streets, a lot of apartment buildings do have names, which come in all shapes and sizes - and languages. When strolling around our neighbourhood, it can be quite interesting - and amusing - to read the names on the buildings.
So there is the English option: Whether you live in a building oozing grace or prominence, or suggesting comfort, they all look like attractive places. Not quite sure what the intention behind 'Honey Creative' was, but it sounds kind of cosy, so why not?
In quite a few cases in our neighbourhood, they opted for Italian. Who wouldn't want to live in a place called 'Very Good' ('Molto bene'), 'The Good Life' ('Dolcevita') or 'Queen's House' ('Casa Regina').
'Belluce' doesn't actually mean anything, but it still sounds nice...
Less common, but exuding a Mediterranean vibe: Spanish names. Such as 'Blue Sky' ('Cielo Azul') or 'Laliguras', which sounds Spanish, though I'm not sure whether there is a reference to Liguria, which of course, is located in Italy. But I if a Mediterranean theme is what they were aiming at, I guess it still works.
And then there is French, which seems an unusual choice, given that French pronunciation is notoriously difficult for Japanese speakers, not least because the Japanese syllabic alphabet cannot accurately reflect most sounds of the French language.
So you can choose to live in the future ('Le Futur'), in the grand sky ('Grand Ciel'), in a happy place ('Bonheur'), in a brown house ('Maison de brun'), or simply at home ('Comme chez soi').
And if the architects feel that there is no suitable name or word in any language to match the design of the building, they may go for a fantasy word that sounds French, but actually doesn't mean anything ('Chamveil'). It's actually remarkably popular in Japan, not only for building names, but also for restaurants and other kinds of businesses. Maybe it's time to apply to the French Academy to get it added to the dictionary...
My personal favourite is 'La Vie en Flowerie', with the charm of the French language combined with a made-up word in English. I must admit that it sounds like a rather pretty place to live in.
I guess that those innovative and attractive-sounding building names more than make up for the lack of street names, even if they may not actually help you find a particular address in the first place...
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