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| Japan (Lonely Planet Country Guide) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Chris Rowthorn, Ray Bartlett, Justin Ellis, Craig Mclachlan, Simon Sellars, Wendy Yanagihara
Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications
Category: Book
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £7.00
You Save: £9.99 (59%)
New (6) from £7.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 140278
Media: Paperback
Edition: 9Rev Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 812
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 4.9 x 1.4
ISBN: 1740599241
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.2045
EAN: 9781740599245
ASIN: 1740599241
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New book never been used!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Useful but bulky and expensive. August 4, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
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 July 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 November 12, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
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.
Sadly only second best October 22, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
We take both this Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide on our Japanese road trips, allowing us to compare them side by side. And two ARE better than one, since the authors make different choices about what to cover.
During our latest four-week visit, however, we concluded that this Lonely Planet just can't compete with its rival.
Too often, its decisions about what to emphasise and what to exclude are downright eccentric. Moreover, there is an annoying style in some regional chapters - humorous or sarcastic parenthetical comments that add no information and feel like padding.
The Rough Guide, by comparison, is more straightforward. If you can afford and have room for both, that's probably still the best option. If not, though, Lonely Planet would not be the first choice.
Some obvious omissions September 1, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
It was 'good', but not definitive - I would use it to see what direction to head in etc but then usually find something else interesting along the way.
One MAJOR omission is that all of the phone numbers listed for hotels etc do not have the region/city code at the beginning so it is a major effort to sort that out!! So be warned...
Also we found the maps incredibly difficult to orientate ourselves by.
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