Product Description

The electric chaos of Tokyo or the tranquil wilderness of Hokkaido? Osaka's street culture or Kyoto's shrines and Zen gardens? From Ginza's bright lights to the 88 Temples of Shikoku, with this guide and a bullet train you can see it all.

• Japanese script throughout • extensive menu glossary covering all styles of Japanese cuisine • wide range of sleeping options from opulent ryokan to capsule hotels • over 150 maps, most with Japanese script to aid navigation • illustrated special section on art and architecture • language chapter to help you tell your setto from your sento

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #480558 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 784 pages

Amazon.com Review
From Antarctica to Zimbabwe, if you're going there, chances are Lonely Planet has been there first. With a pithy and matter-of-fact writing style, these guides are guaranteed to calm the nerves of first-time world travelers, while still listing off-the-beaten-path finds sure to thrill even the most jaded globetrotters. Lonely Planet has been perfecting its guidebooks for nearly 30 years and as a result, has the experience and know-how similar to an older sibling's "been there" advice. The original backpacker's bible, the LP series has recently widened its reach. While still giving insights for the low-budget traveler, the books now list a wide range of accommodations and itineraries for those with less time than money.

This thorough guide is the perfect companion for discovering the classical and contemporary delights of Japan. The more than 170 maps have keys in both English and Japanese script and there's a 30-page arts section covering everything from calligraphy to rock music and an enticingly descriptive guide to the joys of Japanese cuisine. Whether your interests lean toward culture and history or the great outdoors, this book will get you there. --Kathryn True

Review
As usual the guidebook standard is set by Lonely Planet

-- Outside

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Few countries make such conflicting claims on the imagination as Japan. The mere mention of the word Japan is enough to set off a cascade of contrary images: ancient temples and futuristic cities; mist-shrouded hills and lightning-fast bullet trains; kimono-clad geisha and suit-clad businessmen; quaint thatch-roofed villages and pulsating neon urban jungles.

Amazingly, all of these images are accurate. This peculiar synthesis of the modern and the traditional is one of the things that makes travel in Japan such a fascinating experience. It also ensures that no matter what your taste, you'll find a side of Japan that suits your interests.

If traditional culture is your thing, you can spend weeks in cities like Kyoto and Nara, gorging yourself on temples, shrines, kabuki, no, tea ceremonies and museums packed with treasures from Japan's rich artistic heritage.

If modern culture and technology is your thing, you'll find Japan's cities an absolute wonderland - an easy peek into the future of the human race, complete with cool cafes and great restaurants!

Outside the cities, you'll find natural wonders the length and breadth of the archipelago. From the coral reefs of Okinawa to the snow-capped peaks of the Japan Alps, the giant cedar trees of Yaku-shima to the wide-open spaces of Hokkaido, most visitors are pleasantly surprised to discover that Japan has more than enough natural wonders to compete with its cultural treasures.

But for many visitors, the real highlight of their visit to Japan is the gracious hospitality of the Japanese themselves. Indeed, a night in a good ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) may well put you off hotels for the rest of your life. From the deep bow of the hostess at the door, to the steaming ofuro (Japanese bath), to the thick futon laid out for you after you dine, you'll find the whole experience unforgettable.

Then there's Japanese food. No matter how much Japanese food you've eaten outside the country, nothing can prepare you for how delicious the genuine article is when served in its home country. Whether it's impossibly fresh sushi in Tokyo, perfectly battered tempura in Kyoto or a hearty bowl of ramen in Osaka, if you like eating, you're going to love Japan!

Best of all, Japan is an incredibly easy and safe country in which to travel. The Japanese public transport system is one of the best in the world. From the sleek bullet trains to humble local buses and trams, you will find that getting around the country is an absolute breeze. And with an extensive network of information offices spread across the nation, figuring it all out is remarkably easy.

The fact is, whatever your image of Japan, it probably exists somewhere on the archipelago - and is just waiting for you to discover it. So what are you waiting for?

Customer Reviews

Not bad, but I did find better...
I bought this book, along with several others, including Frommers, for my trip to Japan a little over a month ago. I stayed in northern Japan--near Aomori and visited Tokyo, Sendai, Hachinohe and Morioka. Lonely Planet was helpful but, the book I used the most and relied on the most--with everything to neighborhood maps and out of the way places to eat and shop--was Rough Guide Japan. Same premise as Lonely Planet, but I found it more user friendly and it's information more beneficial. It was fun when I found a mention of a new car Toyota showroom to sit in and test drive models, and the world's only parasite museum. I didn't make it to the parasite museum in Tokyo, but the Toyota Amlux was interesting! Lonely Planet was good, but it didn't always have "mini maps" of the places they were talking about, and that left me confused. Also, they would give "circular" trips around a city, which was good, but if you didn't start out-or couldn't find-where they began, you quickly had no idea what or where they were taking you. There was plenty more in Rough Guide Japan than I found helpful in Lonely Planet, and Frommers just plain, well, sucked. It was my first trip there and the only other advice I can give is to get a rail pass as well as Rough Guide Japan!

The worst LP I've seen
I've used Lonely Planet before, always loved them, but this guidebook was a real pain: Half the directions were innaccurate. Sometimes the directions were so vague (and then, upon finding the ryokan or hostel, found to be patently incorrect), that I suspected the authors were writing about it several weeks after the fact. Similarly, the locations found on city maps were occasionaly obvious guesswork. Area maps didn't include kanji names or train-transfer cities, making them nearly useless. City maps were cursory, and I always got a real city map first thing I could, from the tourist board.

As always with the LP, its popularity is so widespread that its advice must be viewed with suspicion. For instance, it strongly recommended a noodle shop in Nikko. Upon going to the place (against my better judgement!) I found the LP review hanging in the window, the restaurant full of other gaijin, and unnappealing food obviously aimed at satisfying those who find Japanese cuisine weird.

It's probably still worth having the book, just because it's so comprehensive...it's bound to have a place to stay if you pull into a city at 10pm. However, for those touring Japan in detail, not just Tokyo and Kyoto, I would recommend a combination of Will Ferguson's _The Hitchhiker's Guide to Japan_ (even if not hitchhiking, he describes interesting travel routes that can be branched out of), an atlas of Japan (I used the Kodansha english/Japanese atlas, but anything with kanji place names and road&train routes is good), and JNTO pamphlets (easy to pick up) listing all hostels and various ryokans. Japan is a safe, easy, and consistently interesting country to get around in. A comprehensive book (especially one laced with inaccuracies and an obvious bent towards the cities) isn't as useful as it would be elsewhere.

Better guides available
When I traveled in Japan with a friend, this was the book we brought with us. Within a week we were at a foriegn language bookstore in Tokyo looking for a better one. There are some things this guide does quite well -- it helped us out finding reasonably priced places to stay throughout the country, and the advice to get a JR pass was invaluable.

However, the book has a very negative, immature view of Japan as a country and travel in general. It seems to be written by bitter expatriates with a fascination with gaijin bars and the sex trade. Did I pay $1200 for plane tickets to go drink with Americans? The authors express a bias against culturally interesting sites, ancient and modern, that borders on the anti-intellectual. The cultural notes are dated, inaccurate, and shallow. After a while, we began to think, "If Lonely Planet doesn't recommend it, it's probably interesting." The maps, as many have mentioned, are almost useless. Ironically for a series which fetishizes getting off the beaten path, it's practically useless once you get out of the main tourist areas.

There are much better guides available. This entry has sworn me off the LP series for life.