Book Description
A bowl of whisked green tea in the teahouse of Hama Rikyu Onshi-teien is about as Japanese as it gets. The garden was once a pleasure dome for the shogun, but now you too can pause and savour the moment, as ducks glide by in the pond at your feet and precision-plucked pines pose like puffed clouds. But cross the narrow wooden bridge over the pond and look backwards: framing the teahouse, the pond and the pines are the skyscapers of Shiodome, gleaming glass and granite and all built since the turn of the millennium. If that's not an only-in-Tokyo moment, then nothing is.
o SLEEP IN STYLE - informative reviews of the best luxury hotels, traditional ryokan and top-value budget options make the decisions easy
o NAVIGATE WITH EASE - clear and detailed maps with Japanese script take you where you want to go
o TREAT YOURSELF - our authors have hand-picked the best designer wares, specialist music stores, tucked-away shopping streets and more
o FEAST LIKE A LOCAL - discerning reviews deliver the gems, from decadent kaiseki to mouth-watering sashimi
o ESCAPE FOR A DAY - head for the traditional temples of Nikko and Kamakura, or soak your bones in an onsen; our Excursions chapter has all the best tips
Customer Reviews:
Colorful, fun and travel-sized!.......2007-10-01
I had no idea this book was so small until I received it, and I don't mind it at all. I have other Japan travel books by Frommer's and Fodor's so this thin book was a blessing.
Another reviewer mentioned needing a magnifying glass to read, but I can read it fine and so can my husband -- we're twenty-somethings and he wears glasses -- so I think that if you have grandchildren or existing eyesight problems then yes, it might be an issue.
For me, the bright colors behind the text were no problem. I love how colorful everything is -- EVERY page is in color. Great photos and summaries of the top "must do" attractions.
The descriptions are short to keep the size of the book down, but they list all essential info: name in english AND hiragana/kanji/katakana (really handy!), address, hours of operation, admission fees (if applicable), a URL if they have one and what train to take to what stop and even what exit to use from the station. AWESOME.
The only blemish on this otherwise amazing book is the foldout map. Mind you the map itself is helpful as heck, what with the Tokyo subway system map included, close-ups of three popular neighborhoods, every sight listed in the book listed on the map with appropriate designations (a2, d4, etc), and even helpful phrases such as "hello" and "two beers please." However, the perforation on my copy was poor and the map was glued in VERY crooked. While trying to carefully pull the map out like was intended, it pulled the cover from the back of the book. I should have just cut it with scissors in retrospect, but that was the point of the map: to pull it out easily. When I got it loose, it was difficult to pull the excess paper from the perforation. So just cut out your map out of your copy of the book and you won't have any problems!
Oh, and the super-glossy parts of the front and back covers are just slick as hell.
Where's the magnifying glass ?????.......2007-10-01
This book needs to come with a free magnifying glass.
I recently purchased the 2007 edition of Tokyo Encounter by Lonely Planet. We will be flying to Tokyo in November, 2007. They condensed the size of this book to fit into a pocket and as a result, the print is tiny and difficult to read. In fact, much of the print actually cannot be read without straining the eyes or needing a magnifying glass. The highlighted areas are shaded in pinks, greens, blues and the print on those shaded areas is ridiculously even more reduced to the point it cannot be read. This book is only for those with 20/10 vision and for those who carry along a pocket magnifying glass. Otherwise, don't spend your money.
boring, but incredibly useful.......2007-09-28
When we were planning our trip to Japan, we purchased The Rough Guide to Japan and The Lonely Planet Guide to Tokyo. Reading through the Lonely Planet Guide, I found very little that sounded worth doing or seeing. The same items described in The Rough Guide were much more intriguing. So I chose what to see and do based on The Rough Guide.
Close to the time of our trip, someone who had just been to Japan recommended The Time Out Guide to Tokyo for the maps. But when it came time for planning the details of the tour - where the chosen attractions were located, when they were open, and how to get from here to there, the maps and the details in the descriptions in The Lonely Planet Guide were far more useful than those in the other two books. For practical use, I have given this book four stars.
Excellent Resource.......2007-04-23
Tokyo can be really overwhelming because there are a million things to do! This book really helped with highlighting each area of Tokyo as well as providing hours and addresses of the places you want to visit. It also had fantastic suggestions for cheap eats. This author takes you into the back alleys (if you want to go - which you should!) or keeps you in the high class areas of Tokyo for a well rounded trip.
I coupled this book with the Tokyo City Atlas book, which made it possible to understand the crazy mapping system of Tokyo.
Have fun!
Excellent practical information, improved cultural suggestions.......2006-10-04
The Lonely Planet guides are very often the best when it comes to providing practical information such as maps, changing money, the best way to get from A to B, etc. This edition of the Tokyo guide is no exception. It has everything you need to plan your trip and to get around Tokyo.
This edition is also an improvement over the prior editions when it comes to cultural recommendations, such as restaurants, walking tours, interesting shops, museums, etc. The "Time Out" guide is probably still better is the cultural department, but it is weak when it comes to maps, etc., so it may be worth taking both guides.
Book Description
They don't come any cooler than Tokyo. By turns hi-tech, lo-fi, conventional and outrageous, Tokyo is a city that shouldn't work but does. Promenade with the goths of Harajuku, feast your eyes on the blazing lights of Ginza, and unwind in an intimate izakaya. For a city as stylish as Tokyo, you need a smart and streetwise guide. This is it.
• INDULGE YOUR APPETITE in the finest local restaurants with our Japanese food chapter
• CATCH THE BULLET TRAIN with confidence, with 11 detailed color maps, and routes and prices from Akihabara to Ueno Zoo
• DO THE SHINTO SHUFFLE with walking tours to temples and shrines, gardens and palaces
• PICK UP THE PULSE of the city with our entertainment listings and City Life chapter
• REFRESH YOUR SENSES with easy day-trips to onsen, temple towns and the famed Mt Fuji
Customer Reviews:
Flawed half haerted attempt.......2006-08-18
I just returned from Tokyo, where I used this book. I really think it is better to get information from your hotel's front desk or a tourist center.
I was fortunate to be visiting a friend who is from Tokyo, had I relied on the book I would have been totally frustrated. The most glaring problems with the book are:
1) It does not know any interesting things about Tokyo, no deep insights, what the book knows are the things like "Tokyo is a modern city" "the subway is full" "life is fast paced" "It is noisy in Akhirabara". In other words the book feels like anyone could have written it, not an insider that knows Tokyo.
2) Worse, it has many factual errors, especially about the hotel. I stayed in 4 different hotels and vested a total of 9, so I did my research. Some hotels it describes as nice, new and clean are tiny dirty dumps. At least one hotel is several streets away from where the book says, and its next to a lake, so you'd think they'd get that right. Another is smack in the middle of a lively red light district with, complete with dolled up women loudly chasing drunken businessmen. Not something most American tourists would like to find, I believe.
In the end it is clear what this book is: a half hearted effort quickly thrown together by the LonelyPlanet machine, using an author that, as the book admits (!) has not lived in Japan for over 10 years, and has no clear qualifications for writing a guidebook.
But Lonely Planet's marketing clout is huge, many small bookstores carry only LP books and then a large section of them. They have expertise in marketing not in guiding.
I also have the LP book on Kyoto, where I visited after Tokyo, and it is not as bad, though still bad enough to have several travelers I know through it out while still in Kyoto.
There are travel agencies at the airports and at the (amazing) train station in Kyoto that do have English speakers and frankly you're better off using them.
However, I must point out that I had no other guidebook to compare it to, so the others maybe just as bad. My personal advice, if you have a fully stocked bookstore, go there and pick a book from each publisher about a city that you do know. This way you can tell at least the quality of some of their writing.
Since some readers of this review will be thinking of going to Tokyo, here are my two cents, a mini travel advice, if you will: hotels can be surprisingly reasonable for the legend that is Tokyo, 100 bucks a night gets a room you'd pay at least 250 for in NYC. Travel agencies can get you better prices if your lucky, if you walk in off the street you will likely have to pay the walk in rate, the highest rate.
My Citibank card did NOT work even at ATMS that tell you on the screen that they accept Citibank cards. Ah the joys of modern banking...However, a real Citibank branch with atms that do work can be found. Citibank cheated its customers so bad that the Japanese government forced them to close many branches, so they are not that easy to find, ask your hotel. The branch in Ginza is, apparently, open 7 days a week.
Get a telephone card for public phones, they can be bought next to any row of public phones. Tokyo still has some public phones around, which is great because Japan's cell phone system is totally non-compatible with anything else. So even if you have a quad band gsm phone, you can not buy sim cards for it in Japan. You can however rent cell phones at the airport. For the business traveler with appointments here and there, it might be very helpful. You have to rent them at the airport, though, can't find em in the city.
Another thing: bring money. Tokyo is still very expensive in the year 2006. Taxi's are insane, the meter starting at 6 dollars and climbing rapidly from there. Subways system in Tokyo is everywhere, but for those that can't do allot of walking it can be tough. Most of Tokyo is bicycle friendly, bicycles astonishingly being accepted on any sidewalk (that can get real annoying, but remember we are guests there), so for those with them walking blues I suggesting renting a bike to explore around your hotel.
Everyone travels differently, for different reasons, I personally suggest: Explore the little things that seem normal to Japanese, so are not pointed out as special. Like the stuff in the 7-11 (sports drinks frozen solid, ice "cubes" in the shape of perfect round softballs etc.), which are everywhere, or the tiny unassuming store that a little old lady runs, who will gladly show you a kimono belt ("obi") if you ask, only to find out that the one belt costs 10 000 us dollars (I am glad I keep my hands clean!).
One side-note for the few who are Leica fans, Japan is indeed Leica country. If you, like me, keep a sticker over the red dot of your M or R take it off in Japan, I know it is showing off in a way, but it actually changes the way people treat you.
One final note on getting around in that culture: if you go to, say, Germany and speak English, they will understand you, and if they do not understand something, they will say that they don't understand (they will also think you are an uneducated fool, looking for oil and places to bomb, ah to be an American in the Bush era...). In Japan most people do not speak English. And those that do will always nod and pretend they understand everything you say, they do this convincingly and with amazing patience. You can go on for 10 minutes before realizing the person has no idea what you are saying. Do not be afraid to stop and ask "do you know what I mean when I say ....". They are very, very helpful and if you ask direction will actually walk you several blocks to show you, which makes it even more important to make sure they really know what you meant.
Take everyone's advice guys, this book leaves you hanging........2006-07-23
I read most of the reviews for this book. I don't usually post reviews. But I just had to for this one because every time I read it, it leaves me wondering and asking more questions. It seems so superficial since it gives you a gist of what's going on (like stuff that's happening 5 years ago) and we are in 2006. I look for Park Hotel Tokyo. Not there. They opened in 2003, shouldn't they be in that guidebook? That revision was done later than that. So I took a trip to my local Borders store, and took a look at TimeOut Tokyo's guide book. That book was so much more informative, I really wished I could get a refund. Trust me, this book, sucks.
If I could give ZERO stars!.......2006-06-05
The worst guide book I've ever purchased. I'm not that big a fan of guidebooks in general, but have had good experiences with several from Hong Kong and one of Shanghai. So, I thought I'd give it a try and get one, since I was unexpectedly thrown in Tokyo for a night...
This guidebook is awful. It left me steaming mad and lost in the middle of tokyo for an entire evening, finally i gave up, threw the book back into my backpack and just walked around, glancing at my FREE hotel guide every couple of hours. I mean seriously, the info is all out of date, and i thought the map was horrible, it didn't even have a map that showed the entire city! Only broken up chunks of the neighborhoods... Seriously the biggest waste of money I've ever spent... I am so mad that I wish I could get a refund.
PS: Here's a tip for those of you on a budget that may want to hang out late night in the Shibuya district and not pay atrocious taxi or hotel charges. On the 7th floor of the HMV building in Shibuya (just look around for the pink neon sign, you can't miss it) there is an "internet cafe". it's really comfortable and really clean, and for the equivilant of $16,you can buy a overnight 8 hour package which entitles you to unlimited movies, computer, magazines, and most importantly a private leather cover cubicle where you can just sleep! The place is segregated into mens and ladies...so no worries about safety. Plus there's tons of staff...and the price even includes free (non-alchoholic) drinks! ALso, they'll ask you if you want a "flat" (which is basically a tatami-style leather cushion )or "reclining" which is a comfy leather reclining chair. I prefer the flat, but for those of you taller than 5'5, the reclining chair may be the way to go. Well, there, that information is a lot more than you'll get from this book! don't buy it, and you'll thank me for saving you 12 bucks.
Not bad, but be aware of its shortcomings..........2006-04-19
I frequent Japan, but I pretended to not know a single thing about Japan, and tried using this guide to satisfy all of my questions about culture, tradition, transportation, events, history, food, lodging, etc... And for most things, the guide was helpful, but in almost every case, the answers were a bit short/shallow, and didn't go into enough detail to truly answer the question.
Specifically, I was somewhat disappointed by the half page or so dedicated to all of the various major cities of Tokyo. One would think that you would need more than 5 pages *total* to cover Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Roppongi, Asakusa, Tokyo, Ueno, Ginza, etc... Quite frankly, I think each city deserved its own 5+ page section, and a detailed map of each city.
Speaking of maps, while the guidebook maps contained both English and Japanese (which is vital when asking for directions, as the Japanese aren't confident of their English despite 8+ years of mandated English education), they were not detailed enough to be useful. I didn't particularly care for all the landmarks to be marked with numbers, which meant a constant cross-referencing between the map and the not-so-conveniently located legend on the next page. At the hotel, I picked up a free map (available in various languages) from the *official* Japan travel bureau (japanwelcomesyou.com), and found the maps to be far superior. Far more detail, a sidebar full of suggested activities, and major store names and eateries actually listed on the map so I don't have to turn pages 20 times to get an idea of what is where. Did I mention that the map is free?
The subway map in the guide was useful, and better than the one handed out at your typical subway station, but I was shocked at the complete absence of the JR (Japan Railway) map. Sure, the subway system is useful to get to the inner areas of the "Tokyo Circle" (circle of major cities) but if I want to go from those major cities to major cities, 90% of my travel is all about the JR Yamanote Green Line and the JR Central Orange Line. If I want to get anywhere outside of Tokyo, you won't get far without the JR Railway System. Imagine someone including a map of all the side streets of Los Angeles, but leaving out the major expressways... Considering the author encourages you to get a JR Rail Pass (~$200 for unlimited rides on the JR system for a week; great deal if you want to go cross-country), it makes no sense that JR map was not included. As you can tell, I was quite floored by this decision.
Another pet-peeve I had with this book was that it seemed as though the majority of the food recommendations were not Japanese cuisine. While I understand that good eats are good eats, I don't see why I needed to be introduced to so many average French, Italian, Chinese, Southeast Asian, and American eateries. If I'm going to live in Japan, that's one thing, but if I'm visiting for 5 days, I'd like to stick to Japanese cuisine. I do give it major kudos for listing Izu-Ei in Ueno -- an excellent Unagi shop that's been around since the 1700's, the Emperor and big names favor it, but the common man can eat for as little as $20! I love the fact that this store goes completely against the misconception that good Japanese food costs a fortune.
Anyhow, this is a decent guidebook, but I don't see how it can be 100+ pages *shorter* than a guide to Hong Kong (which costs the same, by the way) -- it ought to be 100+ pages *longer*. While it's still better than most of the guidebooks out there, it could've been a lot better.
Good overall guide, but it only skims the surface of Tokyo. I'd rather have the guidebook go a bit more in-depth, and leave the decision of skimming the surface or going in-depth to me, the traveler.
I would still give this guide a strong purchase consideration for its overview information, but would strongly encourage you to purchase a food guide and a (major) city guide that provides you more detail for each of the cities within Tokyo.
If I need 2 more books to supplement a supposed one-stop-shop travel guide, I just can't find it in my heart to give it any more than 3 stars.
Adequate.......2006-03-07
I found this guidebook adequate. The maps were interesting, but small. I did enjoy the Walking Tours section. I am not sure how many hotels they review, because the hotel I earlier booked is not mentioned. I was not interested in the cheap eats and cheap sleeps information; I felt it caused the book to be more suitable for backpackers rather than middle aged, middle class travelers. Having street names spelled in romanji (roman letters) was somewhat helpful; using the actual Japanese script would have been top notch though.
Customer Reviews:
Some problems with this one.......2005-10-12
I have been using Lonely Planet books for years and am surprised that it would turn out a guide as skimpy and shoddily written as this. The maps are useful, but the text's author, Wendy Yanagihara, seems to be unfamiliar with (or unable to get a sense of) Tokyo's character and its people. Yanagihara seems more bemused than informed, and one can only wonder why she was hired to write about a complex metropolis that she does not seem to understand. I agree with the reader above about the Lonely Planet Japan and Lonely Planet Tokyo guides -- both are good. I'd add another to the list: Time Out Tokyo, which surpasses anything Lonely Planet has yet produced as a guide to Tokyo.
Nice maps, but not much else........2005-09-29
This is a super-condensed version of the Tokyo chapter from Lonely Planet Japan with some extra info added by author Wendy Yanagihara.
I honestly cannot find any reason to recommend this book beyond its small size and fold-out color maps, although if you are going to Tokyo for a short business trip it might help. Although I like Lonely Planet's guides, this one is rather inadequate in that it spends too much time discussing Japanese culture and history and wastes too much space on big pictures instead of cramming that space with more useful information such as phone numbers, websites, and travel information (which is confined to a very small space in the back of the book). Culture and history are important things in Japan, but the amount of space given to them in this book defeats the purpose of this guide.
In other words, buy the most recent issue of the Lonely Planet Japan Guide if you're planning a trip to or employment in Japan. If you really love Tokyo above all else you can substitute the Lonely Planet Tokyo guide. Either one has plenty of information about everyone's favorite megalopolis. As for the maps, you can do without them simply by asking your hotel or the average large information desk (especially at Narita Airport) for maps of the Tokyo Metro and JR lines.
Author Yanagihara, while of Japanese ancestry, has a gee-whiz-wow attitude about everything. At times she seems to have less experience in Tokyo than the average English-language school employee. She certainly means well, but the result is a less than stellar guide - however, I get the impression her editors may be most at fault. Perhaps most unfortunate is the guide's invitation for inexperienced visitors to Japan to get lost - that is, to visit places like Kamakura, Nikko, and Fuji without providing any maps of the areas or decent advice on how to get there. There are other errors such as listing the Tokyo Monorail as the only way to access Haneda Airport, but Keikyu and Keisei Railways provide faster service to a more convenient station (Shinagawa). This should not be the case in a guide like this.
If you want a easy-to-carry guide to Tokyo, this will do. For any info beyond that, look for Lonely Planet Japan and Lonely Planet Tokyo.
Update (October 2007): I paged through the guide again recently and came upon this quote describing the Edo-Tokyo Museum:
"...this wonderful museum illustrates Tokyo's rise from the humble riverside origins of Edo (the Eastern capital) to today's fast forward futuristic metropolis."
It's bad enough that Yanagihara or (worse) her editors, don't seem to know that Tokyo, not Edo, means "Eastern Capital." The fact that the main Lonely Planet Japan guide correctly describes the name means that someone at LP isn't doing the proofreading they should be, especially as Yanagihara is a contributor to the main guide. An oversight this bad ruins the credbility of "Best of Tokyo" and is a disappointing exception to LP's otherwise high quality.
Average customer rating:
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Lonely Planet Citiescape Tokyo (Lonely Planet Citiescape. Tokyo)
Andrew Bender
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 World
| Atlases & Maps
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Asia
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Japan
| Asia
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Tokyo
| Japan
| Asia
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Guidebooks
| Reference & Tips
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Lonely Planet
| Guidebook Series
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1741049385 |
Book Description
Uniform, busy, monolithic. That's Tokyo at first glance. But scratch just below the surface and you'll find a city crackling with energy and a jumble of contrasts. Tokyo is both cos-players and salarymen, reticent and brazen, safe and exotic, gracious and unremitting- thoroughly engrossing and demanding to be seen.
Customer Reviews:
Vestpocket Tokyo.......2007-01-06
"Tokyo - Citiescape" from Lonely Planet is a coffee-table book scaled to fit a vest pocket. Each of the forty or so color photographs, the kind that you wish you had the talent to have taken, targets a single aspect of the city's people, culture, or places and is accompanied by text that is appreciative and insightful. My main complaints are that the text is printed in black against blue or silver and, hence, quite difficult to read and that the photo captions, collected at the end of the book, lack sufficient detail. Make no mistake - this is not a guidebook and won't help one wit to navigate this extraordinary city. Rather, I would recommend it as reading before a first trip to prepare for the experiences ahead or after the return to evoke memories of those experiences.
Average customer rating:
- What a waste of my money!!
- A disappointment
- OK in quality, but there are better guides
- Good basic guide, but missing some key information.
- An Excellent and Very Portable Guide to Tokyo
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Lonely Planet Tokyo (Condensed Edition)
John Ashburne
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Asia
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Japan
| Asia
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Tokyo
| Japan
| Asia
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Dining
| Food & Lodging
| Reference & Tips
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Hotels & Inns
| Food & Lodging
| Reference & Tips
| Travel
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Guidebooks
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| Travel
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Lonely Planet
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ASIN: 1740590694 |
Book Description
This informative and savvy guide captures the best that Tokyo offers in a practical, easy to use format. With opinionated reviews, essential travel tips and detailed fold-out maps, Tokyo Condensed has all the information the discerning visitor needs - for a day or a week, for business or for pleasure.
- a notoriously difficult-to-navigate city is tamed with well-designed maps and text cross-referencing
- accommodation to keep any budget stress-free, from capsule joints to love hotels
- enough Tokyo to satisfy sumo suckers, manga maniacs and design devotees
- reviews the city's wealth of eateries, from noodles on the go to non-stop ceremonial dinners
- how to find that patch of zen in one of the world's most dynamic megalopolises
Customer Reviews:
What a waste of my money!!.......2004-01-19
It appears as though the author must not have liked Tokyo very much, or else he/she had simply gone through the place in less than three days. I had just returned from Tokyo, and throughout my journey I had found the book immensely informative... NOT. In fact, it was downright frustrating to use, given the amazing number of unhelpful maps, half-useful directions and descriptions of places that seemed half-hearted and downright incomplete.
For instance, it mentioned takashimaya square as a place to visit. Happily, I noted the place in my itinerary but did not bother to check for directions first. Imagine my horror when I got to shinjuku station and could derive no clear directions as to how to approach it, from the book. Takashimaya was not even shown on the shinjuku map in the book!
Another grouse I have is the lack of information and places of interest regarding anime. Japan being the land of orgination of anime, I would have expected a bit more write-up on it, not the measly single paragraph that does not do justice to its significance. People who are interested might take note of the Studio Ghibli Museum located in Mitaka - tickets can be purchased from any Lawson convenience store; to reach there, take JR or the subway to Mitaka station, there'll be a bus that caters to the museum visitors there.
All in all, this book is less than useful and I found its lack in most instances to be completely unforgivable. People who are used to blindly purchase from the series based on the strength of its brand name, as I did, please beware!
A disappointment.......2003-12-16
We went to Japan for vacation in October 2003 and LP Tokyo was all we took with us. For the past 7 years I purchased at least 7 Lonely Planet books and they all served me well when visiting interesting parts of the world. Even though I studied 2 years of Japanese in college (ie, I can convert the book's English letters into Japanese characters when looking for places) and this was my third visit (ie, already know what to expect), I still find it confusing in Tokyo since it lacked useful information, and the only thing I used is probably the subway map. Two things that bothered me the most:
1) lack of truly useful phrases in the back section. Ok I know there's actually a Japanese phrase book sold separately, but how could this book has Japanese translation for I'm "Epileptic", but does not have a useful phrase like "please (do/don't) wrap this for me", which is a whole lot useful as Japanese merchants tend to wrap your purchases with beautiful paper, many times they asked me whether I'd like to have it wrapped, thankfully I remembered my textbook days.
2) it is obvious to me that the writers didn't go to all the good restaurants. Maybe this happens to all restaurants (ie, as soon as a travel book mention a restaurant as a good one, everyone would try it out and therefore the restaurant achieves complacency. I tried restaurants listed in the book that actually turned out to be mediocre. And we stopped by some restaurants in alleys that's cheap and tasty. I know it's impossible to hit all restaurants, but how could the writer say that Nikko is a "gourmet blackhole"? Has he/she even walked down the main street to try out the few restaurants that were there? We shyed away from touristy restaurants near the train/bus station in Nikko and walked further up the mainstreet, and we were rewarded with the most memorable dining of our trip, and great food at a meager price. The restaurant owner's family offered us fresh persimmons that were in season to take home, corrected my Japanese grammar(sounds critical but it was actually funny the way they did it), showed us the correct way of eating the food we ordered, and chatted with us about our trip. All I could say is that we were lucky to bump into that place, and anyone could easily do that since it's right on the main street.
Enough about the negative side. I would still buy another Lonely Planet just because I had been a loyal reader and the series had given me countless great memories exotic places even the locals rarely visit. But I just can't give LP credit for its Tokyo book this time(I bought a LP Japan book in 2001 and it was also mediocre). It still has useful information for first time visitors such as the culture, food, getting around by train, and the fact it warns you to avoid Tokyo tower, etc. But when it comes to dining, forget about scrutnizing a street map to find the restaurant addrss listed in the book, you're no further than 100 meters from the nearest restaurant if you're in Tokyo. Usually those restaurants in alleys away from mainstreet (and tourist areas).
OK in quality, but there are better guides.......2003-11-30
I've read different guides on Japan and Tokyo, do to several trips I made over the years. Even trough there are some Lonely Planets I found really great - especially the earlier ones on China and Southeast Asia - this one seems to have copied a lot from other guide books. I tried hard but didn't find much new and unique information. And there are no walking tours, so you have to do homework before you start exploring. In my view, there are some much better guides
Good basic guide, but missing some key information........2003-06-11
I bought the condensed guide because it was small, fit easily in my bag, and seemed to have enough information to keep me going for a short trip to Tokyo. Once I got there, I discovered good and bad about this book.
Good:
- Excellent overview of the city, the major sites, and good itineraries for short stays.
- Helpful maps of the city and subway systems.
- Great cross-referencing between the maps and the guide.
Bad:
- Restaurant listings in the book were all in English with no Japanese spelling for the names. At least in the neighborhoods we were visiting, there were no romanized signs for the restaurants, so we were completely incapable of finding any of the restaurants listed in the book. Although we cannot read Japanese, we are capable of doing symbol comparison, that would have been very handy. We ended up buying a second guide to help us find restaurants.
- No maps of the JR lines in Tokyo. We ended up picking one up at the train station.
An Excellent and Very Portable Guide to Tokyo.......2002-10-14
Lonely Planet Tokyo (Condensed Edition), 2002. This condensed guide is a very convenient guide book: it fits into a back pocket nicely, and the covers (including fold-out maps) are very durable as they have a waterproof coating. I have carried this map around during two Tokyo visits, and it has held up nicely (including during rain). The subway and train map is very current, but it does not cover much outside the JR Yamanote line circle, and the writing is pretty small print (but you can supplement it by picking up a free subway map at a subway station). The reviews are very good, but at least one restaurant seems to be out of business less than 6 months after the printing. The addresses are accurate, and usually a subway exit is specified; however, it can still be a challenge to find places in Tokyo, but this book gives you a very good start. I also like the color photos throughout the book. Overall this is a very good, condensed guide to Tokyo, great for carrying around town while a more detailed guide can be left in the hotel room if desired.
Average customer rating:
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Lonely Planet Tokyo City Guide (Lonely Planet Tokyo)
Chris Taylor
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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