asia

Being a pretty busy person, and usually hating to read travel guides, I find that the DK Eyewitness Guides are the only ones I can stand reading - in fact, I find them enjoyable.

Their main force is that you don't have to imagine whether a destination would be something for you - the guide shows you what to expect, where others just tell you about it. That is the series' main force: They are very easily digestible.

That said, an Eyewitness Guide can't stand alone - especially not one about such a complex place to visit (for westeners) as Japan. My wife usually acquires a Lonely Planet guide for the place, and I read the Eyewitness Guide, and the two complement each other nicely.

The Eyewitness Guide doesn't contain enough detail to really enable you to find your way around - for instance, not all sights are listed with opening hours, and entrance fees are never mentioned. With the high prices in Japan and excentric opening hours, these are very relevant pieces of information. You don't want to travel for an hour in an overcrowded train
just to find that the site is closed!

The maps in this book are pretty good, but could be better. Finding your way around in a Japanese city is difficult even for the Japanese, and the Japanese and maps don't really go together that well. For this reason, faulty maps are not what you really need - here, it turned out, the maps in the Lonely Planet guide were more precise.

On the other hand, the book has an excellent phrase book - a lot of useful phrases, including "I'd like to make a reservation" and "How do you eat this", makes the book very useful, and we brought it everywhere (even for dinners) for that reason. Here, it vastly surpassed the Lonely Planet guide, and as the Japanese typically don't understand English at all, it's almost indispensable!

Being a fan of the Eyewitness Guides, I was at first slightly disappointed by this book compared to the ones about NYC and Paris, but I grew to like it more and more with actual use. Still, it can't stand alone, and that is its main disadvantage.

I do hope DK will publish individual Eyewitness guides to Kyoto and Tokyo. To fit all of Japan into one guide is an unreasonable task, so I considered this book to be an overview at best. Even so they managed to include a great deal of detail and I found it extermely useful throughout my recent trip to Japan. There were many instances where Eyewitness Japan gave more detailed information on a particular sight than the Lonely Planet city guides for Kyoto and Tokyo.

I love the way the Eyewitness guides organise the information in a way that is similar to how you will actually tackle it when traveling; first by region than neighborhood. It is all very visual and user friendly, but also quite meaty when you dig into the information. One word about the maps, which I found excellent; very few streets in Japan are labeled, only the major ones, and many streets don't have names at all, so street names are not really relevant. I often found myself orienting myself by the last shrine I passed.

Like many people I find the Eyewitness guides to be an excellent resource in planning and navigating my travels, as well as a nice keepsake for my bookshelf when I return. I find their strength to be in guiding you around and explaining the major sights, I look elsewhere for information on dining, lodging and the off-beat. No single guide is good for everything. In fact if it were up to me I would eliminate the hotel and restaurant sections of the Eyewitness guides all together because they are so weak. I loved this guide for what it is, an excellent overall view of Japan.

Japan is a place one does not visit every day and it is expensive. Also I like to go well armed with maps and books because unlike the USA or Canada some areas have no english signs so the more information the better. I would recommend this book, and at least one book on Japan's society - see Amazon.com plus a good map book.

I first discovered these books (a series Eyewitness Travel) by accident. The photos and desicriptions and cutaway drawings are excellent. Plus they throw in some history and details on the art and many other things of interest including places to eat. A solid effort - lots of stuff to see and absorb. What is attractive about this book is that it pulls a lot of things together such as history and culture and urban areas. But the book brings it all to life with just magnificent photos and maps.

Jack in Toronto