Frommer's Japan (Frommer's Complete)

List Price: $24.99 Discount Price: $13.00

Customer Reviews:

Very good guide book! [Posted on 2008-05-02]
This is a great guide book. I used it on my very first trip to Japan and it really helped me experience a lot of things that I would have never been able to find or know about on my own. I traveled with a friend that is Japanese and there were things in this book that they didn't even know about. The maps of the cities are also accurate, which is a big help. My other travel partner had another book from a different publisher and it only listed pictures and locations about things to do. It didn't have maps or directions. I think that is what puts this product ahead of the others.

Frommer's Japan [Posted on 2008-07-02]
It is difficult to get really good uptodate travel books about countries in the far east. This book is good but not excellant. Just too many changes taking place especailly in countries like Japan. We found we could rely on information and data about historical landmarks and areas. Hotel and restaurant iformation changes so quickly you may be better off going to the internet.

Frommer's does it again [Posted on 2008-08-28]
I have trusted Frommer's for years. I have never been steered wrong by any of heir publications in over 30 years. This Japan volume continuues in that tradition.

Frommer's Japan [Posted on 2008-09-08]
Excellent and helpful information. Only down side is that Okinawa is not included in the information.

Useful [Posted on 2008-10-21]
We just got back from Japan & used this guide to supplement info gathered on the internet. It is a useful guide but our biggest gripe: The book should have the Japanese characters right next to the name of the city, restaurant, etc. What a pain it was flipping to the back of the book to find these! You're tired/hungry & not really familiar w/the characters so you're flipping to look at the directions to find the place & trying to decipher the sign outside the door. Really annoying & could be done so simply. Also it would have helped when we were watching the Japanese news (which is all in Japanese) to catch the weather for the day. The news show the cities in the Kanji characters but the city names are not in Kanji in the guidebook. GRRRR

I agree w/another reviewer that some areas of Tokyo get short shrift in this guide - Ueno is just one example. If you are traveling to more areas than just Tokyo you would buy the Japan guide (this book) but we really didn't want & shouldn't have to carry the Tokyo guide too - it should all be in one book. Besides, a lot of the info in the Tokyo guide is a repeat of the basic info on visiting Japan.

I don't like how this book is organized - all the restaurants, hotels for the whole city in one section. It would be much more useful to take each part of the city & give all the info in its own section. When I'm in Ginza looking for a restaurant I don't want to see all the restaurants listed for every part of town. Tokyo is so huge that you may be concentrating on one part of town in a day & we found it annoying to have to flip around, refer to the index, etc. to find info. Another way to organize it would be as DK Eyewitness does with an index of restaurants/hotels in the back - easier to find.

The best maps are at the Tourist Info Centers. I would recommend that be your first stop at the Narita airport. Also, print out your own Kanji for city names before you leave home. You can find them on the internet.

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