Rating: 
Summary: detailed yet confounding
Review: read carefully... there is is good info in there somewhere... other wise you will end up wandering the red light district of hiroshima for a bar that does not exist
Rating:
Summary: detailed yet confounding
Review: read carefully... there is is good info in there somewhere... other wise you will end up wandering the red light district of hiroshima for a bar that does not exist
Rating: 
Summary: Best Guide Book on Japan
Review: The Rough Guide is hands down the best travel guide on Japan. The writing is fresh and informative, the practical information is up to date and helpful, and the data is accurate. For the amount of material covered, the depth is amazing ... From Hokkaido to the islands of Okinawa you can navigate the entire country with just this book. And not just "navigate", but plan what to see, where to eat, and where to stay with a variety of options.The main complaints previous reviewers have concern the occasional mistake and the lack of pictures. Of course, when you try to summarize an entire country in a thousand pages there will be mistakes and omissions, and of course information will go out of date. Which is why you should always double check your sources, or be prepared to roll with the punches. Most places have websites and even the smallest cities in Japan have at least a little bit of tourist information in English. If you're spending the time and money to come all the way to Japan, what does it hurt to spend a little bit of extra time on the internet double checking the details on places you want to see. The same goes for pictures. Personally, I'd rather wait until I get to a place and see for myself what something looks like, but when it comes to pictures (or maps) the internet is a treasure trove of information. No matter how well you plan things, there will always be hangups. Traffic is bad. A place you want to see is taking the day off. A bar you want to go to has closed its doors. The best you can do is get as much information ahead of time and hope for the best. From my experience living in Japan, if you are going to rely on one main source for your travel information in Japan, use the Rough Guide. It's better than anything else out there.
Rating:
Summary: Best Guide Book on Japan
Review: The Rough Guide is hands down the best travel guide on Japan. The writing is fresh and informative, the practical information is up to date and helpful, and the data is accurate. For the amount of material covered, the depth is amazing ... From Hokkaido to the islands of Okinawa you can navigate the entire country with just this book. And not just "navigate", but plan what to see, where to eat, and where to stay with a variety of options. The main complaints previous reviewers have concern the occasional mistake and the lack of pictures. Of course, when you try to summarize an entire country in a thousand pages there will be mistakes and omissions, and of course information will go out of date. Which is why you should always double check your sources, or be prepared to roll with the punches. Most places have websites and even the smallest cities in Japan have at least a little bit of tourist information in English. If you're spending the time and money to come all the way to Japan, what does it hurt to spend a little bit of extra time on the internet double checking the details on places you want to see. The same goes for pictures. Personally, I'd rather wait until I get to a place and see for myself what something looks like, but when it comes to pictures (or maps) the internet is a treasure trove of information. No matter how well you plan things, there will always be hangups. Traffic is bad. A place you want to see is taking the day off. A bar you want to go to has closed its doors. The best you can do is get as much information ahead of time and hope for the best. From my experience living in Japan, if you are going to rely on one main source for your travel information in Japan, use the Rough Guide. It's better than anything else out there.
Rating:
Summary: skimpy maps, poorly indexed
Review: This book is not marred by the "where can an English-only speaker find a good place to get drunk and party" spirit of the Lonely Planet guide. Sadly, however, it falls short of the Lonely Planet in the crucial departments of maps and index. If you're in a rental car the fact that the Rough Guide maps don't show route numbers will be a painful discovery. For train travelers, the book would be a lot more useful if the index were more comprehensive.
Rating: 
Summary: A word of warning
Review: This guide has not those beautiful pictures of, say, the National Geographic guide, nor it has very detailed maps. That may be the meaning of "rough." We had a bad experience when visiting Hokkaido: The book said a recommended site was 50 km South from the station we would get to. So we planned our trip with that idea in mind. But in the way we found the site at a map and it was 50 km NORTH! We had to change the plan and get to a "less recommended" site by the same guide (yes, the poor bears should return to the forests). It wasn't that bad but I can't compare, you see. So please CONFIRM the places you are going in a map. You could get one (or take a look in an atlas) in a tourist information center or the like. Don't always trust the guide. However, we got useful information from the guide, like a nice Youth Hostel that was not listed in a very good Japanese book of accomodations. In the guide you'll find the phone numbers and even the web page. The maps have only the minimum information: you have to ask in the station about the time you need to get to every place, because not all the stations are drawn in the guide's maps.
Rating:
Summary: Lonely Planet Remake
Review: This is a book in the LP- or Moon guides- type vein: information for the individual traveler looking for places to go, stay, and eat. It is not the Fodor- or Insight Guides-type that is filled with nothing but big glossy pictures with some history about the big tourist places to visit. In other words, if you're taking a package tour, most of the info contained here isn't necessary. However, if you travel, as opposed to being a 1-week book-a-tour tourist, this book contains information that will help you find places to stay and how to get to them, as well as the souvenir stops. I purchased this book in the hopes that I could find out about places other than those that were already covered in Lonely Planet Japan. However, place for place it covers almost the exact same ground with about a 95% plus overlap. There are a few hotels/ryokan that are not listed between the two and a few places that are in one but not the other (i.e. Goto Islands in LP but not RG). I was disappointed; not that much is different. Its strengths lie in its writing style, which is not as abrupt as LP, its maps which are simpler (this can also be a detriment), its context chapter at the end, and its having the area codes on all the telephone numbers (very annoying in LP where you have to find the beginning of the section to find the area code). Weaknesses include an inconsistent subtitling for basic information. For example, in some chapters, hotels are under "Practicalities" and in others it's under "Accomodations." This slows you down a bit until you get used to it. Another is the hotel pricing system. As anyone who's been around the inexpensive hotels in Japan knows, pricing is done per person, and not per couple (double or twin). Even a "discount double" is often only Y500 less than 2 singles. Many business hotels have very limited twin and double accomodations, being mostly singles (Hotel Hawaii in Akita has over 300 singles but 9 doubles or so). In some ryokan/minshuku rooms, a double price is misleading because if you squeeze a 3rd or 4th person in the room, you pay for each person. A Y5000 per person room is only Y5000 with one person, but Y20,000 with 4. That said, the Rough Guide at least has a few different accomodation listings from Lonely Planet, but not always. Train and bus connections are sometimes hard to find as they are only at the end of main divisions, and not at each destination. I would mark them with post-its or just get a JNTO rail schedule at Narita. In conclusion, look over the maps and styles, but don't get both the Rough Guide AND the LP Japan; they both fill the same niche in travel books. Pick the one that looks good to you and you'll have a useful tool. If you want the pretty photos and all your hotels and meals are already paid for, you don't need this guide or the LP guide.
Rating:
Summary: robert commer is an angry man.
Review: Unless you're completely void of imagination and self reliance, DISREGARD THE ROBERT COMMER REVIEW... he's blaming the book for his own stupidity on one occasion on one city. The book isn't useless, and I strongly doubt it was less help to him in Tokyo than a map of Paris. What a crybaby. There's plenty of info in any guidebook (certainly in RG Japan); sometimes that one piece isn't, so sometimes you look elsewhere...
Rating:
Summary: RG Japan is the Best Travel Guide
Review: We just came back from a two-week trip to Japan using the RG Japan. We visited Ise Pennisula, Shikoku, Kansai and Kyushu area and found the guide book was very detail yet accurate in all aspects. The book is especially helpful for us for the accommodations and eateries. One example is the Hiroshima International Youth House in the Aster Plaza in the Hiroshima city center, which has brand new western rooms (two beds and bath, no food) for only 6,260 Yen for two person per night. The book provides accommodation price range from 1 through 9 and we tried one Ryokan with 9 in Dogo Hot Spring in Shikoku. The bill was 52,000 Yen per night, just like the book described (also the superb service and garden). In addition to the normal description of tour details, the book provides considerable historical and cultural background information which helped us to understand Japan better. I compared the RG with similar guide books from the LP and Frommer and my experience is that RG Japan is definitely far superior than the latter two for touring Japan.
Rating: 
Summary: INTRODUCTION TO THE ROUGH GUIDE TO JAPAN
Review: WINNER: 1999 JAPAN FESTIVAL AWARDS WINNER: 1999 TRAVELEX GUIDEBOOK AWARD For a country that lived in self-imposed isolation until 150 years ago, Japan has not hesitated in making up for lost time since the world came calling. Anyone who's eaten sushi or used a Sony Walkman feels they know something about this slinky archipelago of some 6800 volcanic islands tucked away off the far eastern coast of Asia, and yet, from the moment of arrival in this oddly familiar, quintessentially Oriental land it's almost as if you've touched down on another planet. Japan is a place of ancient gods and customs, but is also the cutting edge of cool modernity. High-speed trains whisk you from one end of the country to another with frightening punctuality. You can catch sight of a farmer tending his paddy field, then turn the corner and find yourself next to a neon-festooned electronic games parlour in the suburb of a sprawling metropolis. One day you could be picking through the fashions in the biggest department store on earth, the next relaxing in an outdoor hot-spring pool, watching cherry blossom or snow flakes fall, depending on the season. Few other countries have, in the space of mere generations, experienced so much or made such an impact. Industrialized at lightning speed, Japan shed its feudal trappings to become the most powerful and outwardly aggressive country in Asia in a matter of decades. After defeat in World War II, it transformed itself from atom bomb victim to wonder economy, the envy of the globe. Currently facing up to recession and rising unemployment after years of conspicuous consumption, Japan still remains fabulously wealthy and intent on reinvention for the twenty-first century, when, together with South Korea, it will become the first Asian nation to host soccer's World Cup in 2002. You don't want to wait until then to visit, though. Given the devalued yen and lower prices, Japan is now more attractive than ever to anyone keen to see just what makes this extraordinary country tick. It's never going to be a cheap place to travel, but there's no reason why it should be wildly expensive either. Some of the most atmospheric and traditionally Japanese places to stay and eat are often those that are the best value. In the cities you'll first be struck by the mass of people. In this mountainous country, one and a half times the size of Britain, the vast majority of the 126 million population live on the crowded coastal plains of the main island of Honshu. The three other main islands, running north to south, are Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu, and all are linked to Honshu by bridges and tunnels that are part of one of Japan's modern wonders - its efficient transport network of trains and highways. If you're after the latest buzz, the hippest fashions and technologies, and a worldwide selection of food, head for the exciting, overwhelming metropolises of Tokyo and Osaka. The cities are also the best places in which to sample Japan's traditional performance arts, such as Kabuki and No plays, to catch the titanic clash of sumo wrestlers, and track down the wealth of Japanese visual arts in the major museums. Outside the cities, from the wide open spaces and deep volcanic lakes of Hokkaido, blanketed by snow every winter, to the balmy sub-tropical islands of Okinawa, there's a vast range of other holiday options, including hiking, skiing, scuba diving and surfing. You'll seldom have to travel far to catch sight of a lofty castle, ancient temple or shrine, or locals celebrating at a colourful street festival. The Japanese are inveterate travellers within their own country and there's hardly a town or village, no matter how small or plain, that doesn't boast some unique attraction. It's not all perfect, though. Experts on focusing on detail (the exquisite wrapping of gifts and the tantalizing presentation of food are just two examples), the Japanese often miss the broader picture. Rampant development and sometimes appalling pollution is difficult to square with a country also renowned for cleanliness and appreciation of nature. Part of the problem is that natural cataclysms, such as earthquakes and typhoons, regularly hit Japan, so few people expect things to last for long anyway. There's also a blindness to the pernicious impact of mass tourism, with ranks of gift shops, ugly hotels and crowds often ruining potentially idyllic spots. And yet, time and again, Japan redeems itself with unexpectedly beautiful landscapes, charmingly courteous people, and its tangible sense of history and cherished traditions. Most intriguing of all is the opaqueness at the heart of this mysterious "hidden" culture that stems from a blurring of traditional boundaries between East and West - Japan is neither wholly one nor the other. Where to go You'll need at least a couple of weeks just to skim the surface of what Japan can offer. The capital Tokyo, and the former imperial city and thriving cultural centre of Kyoto, will be top of most visitors' itineraries, and deservedly so, but you could avoid the cities entirely and head to the mountains or smaller islands to discover a different side of the country, away from the most heavily beaten tourist tracks. Few cities in the world can compare to Tokyo in terms of its scale and the sheer range of attractions, from the serene calm of the premier shrine Meiji-jingu to the frenetic, eye-boggling fish market Tsukiji. Here you'll find some of the world's most ambitious architecture, most stylish shops and most outrageous restaurants and bars. Frequent tragedies, both natural and manmade, have destroyed much of historical Tokyo and yet the past lingers, in the alleys around the temple Senso-ji and in the elegant imperial gardens now open to the public. Even on the shortest trip to Tokyo you should consider taking in surrounding attractions, in particular the historical towns of Nikko to the north, where the amazing Tosho-gu shrine complex is set amid glorious mountain forests, and Kamakura to the south with its giant statue of the Buddha and tranquil woodland walks. To the west stands Japan's eternal symbol Mount Fuji, best visited during the climbing season from June to September, and the beautiful hot-spring (onsen) resort of Hakone around the lake Ashi-no-ko. Mountains, lakes and hot-spring resorts continue north from Tokyo to the very tip of Honshu island. This district, known as Tohoku, sees surprisingly few visitors, but its sleepy villages and nicely laid-back cities deserve greater attention. While the region has little in the way of top-tier sights, the Golden Hall of Hiraizumi more than justifies the journey, and can easily be combined with the islet-sprinkled Matsushima Bay or Tono, where a more traditional way of life survives among the fields and farmhouses. Northern Honshu is also known for its vibrant summer festivals, notably those of Sendai, Aomori, Hirosaki and Akita, and for its sacred mountains. Of these, Dewa-sanzan, on the Japan Sea coast, is home to a colourful sect of ascetic mountain priests, while souls in purgatory haunt the eerie wastelands of Osore-zan, way up on the rugged Shimokita Peninsula. North across the Tsugaru Straits from here, Hokkaido is Japan's final frontier, home to the Ainu, the country's indigenous people, and popular for its outdoor sports. Daisetsu-zan National Park, dominating the centre of the island has excellent hiking trails over mountain peaks and through soaring rock gorges carved into incredible shapes. For remoteness it's hard to beat the Shiretoko National Park in the far northeast, covering the spindly peninsula of volcanoes and primeval forests that juts out into the Sea of Okhotsk. To the northwest, the lovely islands Rebun-to and Rishiri-to are ideal summer escapes, while in the south, the Shikotsu-Toya National Park, includes two beautiful lakes, onsen and the baby volcano Showa Shin-zan. Hokkaido's most historic city is Hakodate, with its turn-of-the-century wooden houses, churches of expat traders and lively fish market. Most of the appealing capital Sapporo is thoroughly modern, particularly the raging nightlife centre Suskino, but two older attractions are worth catching: the original Sapporo Brewery and the Historical Village of Hokkaido, a park with over sixty buildings from the island's frontier days. Winter is also a fantastic time to visit Hokkaido to catch Sapporo's amazing Snow Festival (Yuki Matsuri) in February, ski at top resorts or take a boat through the drift ice off the port of Abashiri. Skiing, mountaineering and soaking in hot springs are part of the culture of Central Honshu (Chubu), an area dominated by the magnificent Japan Alps. Either the old castle town of Matsumoto or Nagano, with its atmospheric temple of pilgrimage, Zenko-ji, can be used as a starting point for exploring this region. Highlights include the tiny mountain resort of Kamikochi, accessible only from April to November, and the immaculately preserved Edo-era villages of Tsumago and Magome, linked by a short hike along the remains of a three-hundred-year-old stone-paved road. On the Gifu-ken side of the mountains, Takayama deservedly draws
|
