Osaka

Osaka's prominence as a merchant city dates from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's building of Osaka Castle in 1586.  He also encouraged traders from other parts of Japan to settle in the city.  In the 1920s and '30s it became an industrial powerhouse.  Nowadays, though, the nondescript skyline is being replaced with galleries, international hotels, futuristic living spaces and exciting postmodernist architecture.  The city's extravagant nightlife and culinary predilections are famous.  A Japanese saying, "Kyoto kidaore; Osaka kuidaore" suggests that Kyoto-ites are apt to go bankrupt from buying kimonos, and Osakans from eating out too much.