smog

truck (vehicle designed for carrying cargo)

tōrō nagashi (the custom of floating paper lanterns down a river especially at the end of the Bon Festival)

falter, mumble

(idiomatic) to do wholeheartedly; to put one's heart into something

a 家紋 (kamon, “family crest”) design featuring a star shape similar to a Star of David

(Buddhism) think on the power of Kannon

successive series of questions and responses

vicissitudes, the way that the world or a person prospers one day and declines the next

dotting the i's and crossing the t's