Japan (Lonely Planet Country Guide)
 RRP £16.99 Lowest New Price £10.00 
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Lonely Planet Publications Number of pages: 812 Language: English (Original Language) Language: English (Unknown) Language: English (Published) |
RRP: £16.99
Extremely useful book when visiting Japan
Review date: 2009-01-07 Rating: 10 out of 10
This guide book gives you what you need to get the most out of your trip to Japan. Excellent information and great tips which gives you the confidence to travel around this breathtakingly beautiful country and to meet it's fantastic people. I couldn't have done without it. We used this a couple of years ago when we visited Osaka, Tokyo, Kyoto and basically the Kinki region as a whole. I found that as a family (2 adults and 16 and 18yr old) it was really useful, but i would recommend that you use this to plan in advance as well as when visiting.
Reviews
Your safest bet for travelling in Japan
Review date: 2008-11-22 Rating: 10 out of 10
I've travelled quite a bit in Japan and this edition is much improved from my old copy published in 2000 (7th edition). The two new features are the "Top 20" and the example itineraries. First time traveller will find the example itineraries really useful. They are really good and well-travelled routes, covering top spots like Kyoto, Nara and Tokyo. The "Top 20" gives you some interesting ideas.
The lack of photos in the Lonely Planet Guides do make it bit harder to plan trips. For this reason, we also took the "Eye Witness Travel" with us but beyond looking at the photos, we didn't use it much. The Lonely Planet provided a good commentary of the various buildings and locations we visited.
We had trouble booking a budget range hotel listed in the book in Kyoto. This often seems to happen with places that get listed in the Lonely Planet so either book really early or find a less busy hotel on the Internet.
As with the other LP guides, the history section is pretty good. The guide also does well to pack so much from the northern island of Hokkaido to the tropical islands of Okinawa but I was a little disappointed with its coverage of Tokyo. If you're staying in Tokyo for perhaps 2-3 days, it'll serve you well but Tokyo is an enormous city. If you've "done" Tokyo before or intend to stay longer, you may find the Tokyo section a little limited. In that case, you should probably also take a dedicated Tokyo guide book along.
Despite my small gripes, the Lonely Planet guide (or may be the Rough Guide, if you prefer) will be your essential companion for your travels in Japan.
Useful but bulky and expensive.
Review date: 2008-08-04 Rating: 6 out of 10
The Lonely Planet guide to Japan is a detailed and accesible guide to the country, providing a brief historical and cultural overview of Japanese affairs and then exploring sites of interest. The book incorporates many useful features including maps, key phrases and a comprehensive index. The book is mainly black and white but does incorporate a few colour snap shots.
At over 850 pages, the book is packed full of useful information but is also bulky and awkward to fit in a small bag meaning that most days, I left it at the hotel and relied on other books. Maps of smaller cities are helpful but I did find the Tokyo maps difficult to follow and poorly labelled. Descriptions of sites tend to be factual and informative but do not always convey an interest in the site itself. Some aspects of the guide are confusing and could be revised. For instance, the orientation section on Osaka mentions that Shin-Osaka and Osaka are seperate stations but this could be clarified in the Getting There and Away section.
Accounts of hotels and restaurants are practical and in some cases enthusiastic but I do feel this section could be edited and attention paid to the budget of the traveller. Instead of selecting a few examples, the guide could list more briefly and rate them for value.
This is a very useful book, although it is as expensive as better-looking guides which do not however contain the same amount of detail. I do think that the editors should look at condensing some aspects of future editions.
Kyoto section needs to give more guidance
Review date: 2008-07-08 Rating: 6 out of 10
Just returned from 2 weeks in Japan with 2 teens, using only this book. Visited Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. The Tokyo section we found quite good and we only got lost using its maps twice in 6 days (in Asakusa and Akihabara areas). Oddly the subway map doesn't seem to show all the stops on the Yurikamome Line (which you take to see ASIMO and other robots at Miraikan Museum). Fortunately took Tokyo City atlas with us as well.
Our main criticism is that the Kyoto section we felt underinformed us as to the most important sights in the city and we ended up missing some wonders. The orientation section at the beginning doesn't list key sights, just says it is difficult to recommend and to visit east, northwest and southwest areas! Quite a cop-out really and this left us struggling to know what to choose to visit from the vast array of temples and gardens in the limited time we had. We needed some guidance! i.e. of the type 'if you have 3 days in Kyoto do not miss'. Also there are apparently some good things for teens to do in Kyoto - the Geisha make-over studio, the Manga Museum - but we didn't hear about these from the guidebook. There is an emphasis on travelling by bus in the Kyoto section with scanty info on the tube - but we found the tube far easier to use and less confusing than the bus.
The mobile phone section buried in the back of the guide tells you how to hire a mobile but doesn't make clear that apparently UK mobiles don't work in Japan at all - unless they are 3G. So it was impossible for us all to split up and do different things during the day. We would have hired local mobiles at the airport on arrival, had we known this was essential.
Buried in the back of the book it tells you to buy your JR Pass before you go to Japan. The subsequent info given is slightly incorrect in that it tells you that the clock starts ticking on the pass as soon as you validate it in Japan. In fact you can validate it on arrival at the airport with a travel start date several days in the future.
Overall this book was fairly helpful but with incomplete info on some essential basics (mobiles, JR Pass) for a newcomer to Japan. The Kyoto section needs clear guidance on what not to miss. Sections on what to do with teenagers in the cities we visited would also be a helpful addition.
Written by teenagers, for teenagers
Review date: 2007-11-12 Rating: 4 out of 10
Having used this book in Japan as our main guidebook, we find it increasingly irritating. It has an obsession with listing all the gaijin hangouts, as if finding a pint of Guinness was the authors' main objective, but omits numerous interesting places to see.
The book is also very Tokyo-centric and - as other reviewers have noted - often takes a condescending tone when describing other places. The quality of the writing is generally quite poor. Where the authors attempt a "serious travel writing" style, they generally come unstuck pretty quickly.
Overall, the book is written in that 'we're not tourists, we're "travelers" ' style from the previous millennium and cannot be recommended to anyone over the age of 20.
Product Details/Specifications
Authors:
Chris Rowthorn
Ray Bartlett
Justin Ellis
Craig McLachlan
Simon Sellars
Wendy Yanagihara
Recording label: Lonely Planet Publications
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet Publications
EAN: 9781740599245
Binding: Paperback
Dewey decimal number: 915.2045
ISBN: 1740599241
Number of items: 1
Number of pages: 812
Publication date: 2005-10-01
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Unknown)
Language: English (Published)
Brand: Lonely Planet
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