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| The Rough Guide to Korea (Rough Guide Travel Guides) | 
 enlarge | Author: Norbert Paxton
Publisher: Rough Guides Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy Used: £5.98
You Save: £7.01 (54%)
New (43) from £5.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 74685
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 1843538105
Dewey Decimal Number: 915
EAN: 9781843538103
ASIN: 1843538105
Publication Date: August 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: UK SELLER, EXCELLENT CONDITION, FAST DISPATCH.
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| Customer Reviews:
 The best guide for the Korean Peninsula October 20, 2008
Having traveled to North Korea in 2007 I was quite pleased to see that Rough Guides had finally put together a Korea book in time for my trip to the South in 2008.
Before I traveled to the North I was keen to to digest all the available material I could get on Korea. The Lonely Planet is woefully inadequate in its North Korea information and left me feeling that they had taken a few shortcuts presumably because they knew not many people ever go there. The Rough Guide provides a better and more measured commentary on what is sure to be one of the most interesting countries that can be visited.
I also looked at the Moon Guide to South Korea before my trip which is a 800 page volume for a country half the size of the UK. It reads more like a telephone directory than a useful travel guide. It describes in some detail, the method of gaining a train ticket in Busan - put coin in machine, press button for the correct ticket, take card from the machine...it goes on and on and is easily one of the funniest yet most patronising things I have ever read.
The strength of this Rough Guide is that it doesn't feel the need to cover every possible hotel of restaurant, only the ones which are good or must be avoided. Surely this is what a travel book is for?
The recommendations within the book were spot on and I found some great places to eat even in some of the smaller places I went like Jeondongjin and Gonju. I also drank far too much Dongdongju!
This book also has by far the best section on Seoul in any guidebook available especially for the nightlife areas around the Universities.
I even got a free drink off this guy who has a beer stall in Hongdae because I showed him that he was mentioned in the book.
 Disappointingly vague and badly organised October 19, 2008
As someone who was due to live and work in Korea, I was looking forward to a this new Rough Guide for a country that has a stock of either very average, or out of date, guides available.
After I moved here and began using the book, I was disappointed to find that the book was infuriatingly organised (e.g. 'Places to Eat' are not grouped under an area when it is being discussed, but rather in a separate section, same for hotels, etc). The maps are laughably vague and, for all intensive purposes, useless. Seoul, in particular, is difficult to map, but the lack of attention to any kind of detail is simply ridiculous.
Another issue is the bizarre omissions in the guide. For example, in the Busan section, there is not one mention Gwangalli Beach. It is noted on the poor map, but is not covered as an area of interest. Strange, considering it is the second beach in Busan, and is somewhat more interesting in terms of bar and nightlife than the tourist mecca of Haeundae.
Having looked at both the Moon Guide (excellent, but dated) and the Lonely Planet Guide (more detailed, but has its own shortcomings), I would recommend either over this poorly researched effort.
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