Kansai Cool: A Journey into the Cultural Heartland of Japan
Christal Whelan

Worldly and otherworldly, spirited and spiritual, trendy and traditional, Japan's Kansai region is a place where past and future live side-by-side, sometimes at odds. Home to some of the Japan's oldest history, and a place where the country's most time-honoured arts and crafts still thrive, Kansai—the western region that boasts the ancient capitals of Kyoto and Nara, the bustling commercial city of Osaka, and the cosmopolitan port city of Kobe—has a character all its own, right down to its dialect, mannerisms and cuisine. The perpetual dance between custom and innovation plays no small part in Kansai's unique personality.