Obanzai are the frugal side dishes that grace dinner tables daily in Kyoto - the home of washoku, or Japanese cuisine. Cooked to make the staple dish of rice taste delicious, they use only simple ingredients. The wisdom in the preparation is eco-friendly; scraps are reused, none are discarded. The menu handed down in the Sugimoto clan for more than 200 years embodies the spirit of obanzai. Washoku was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2013, and obanzai is in the spotlight.

Calligraphy is the art of writing characters with a brush. The use of kanji characters, which entered from China, spread with the practice of copying sutras. In temples and shrines, the art projects the state of the practitioner's mind. Calligraphy developed independently through the kana syllabary 1,200 years ago. Kana calligrapher Koho Hibino, master of a flowing style, says it embodies Japanese emotional and aesthetic sensibilities. Discover the essence of the black-and-white realm of calligraphy.