1 comments about Japan Guide.

1. This book gives you information from insiders who know subtle distinctions that may be overlooked. Great printing job--very readable for tired eyes

3 comments about The Hitchhiker's Guide to Japan.

1. If you like traveling cheap, and meeting great people as you do it, this book is for you. The small cultural details included are invaluable as you will constantly run into them. The travels plans laid out are specific and don't leave much room for guesswork. Make a special note of the importance of visiting Kyoto and Nara. This area is most like the old traditional Japan. Happy Hitchhiking!



2. For those who plan to tour Japan and want to see something besides the admittedly enjoyable megacities, this is a must-bring book. Rather than the check-everything-off-the-list credo of Lonely Planet travelling, this book is more of a starter point, showing the best tricks and methods to travel around Japan. His recommended tours are interesting and well thought out.

   I have a few complaints about the book, though. Others may disagree, but I found hitchhiking annoying when done too often, and would vary it with taking the train, which wasn't always expensive. I think Ferguson too rarely brings up the importance of speaking Japanese: while hitchhiking is possible (if not as fun) for friends of mine who can barely speak it, some of his recommended activities would be very difficult for non-Japanese speakers. Also, the book gives exact directions how to hitchhike an exact route. While merely a format for the book, hitchhiking (and touring) is a lot sloppier than that...plus it runs counter to the do-it-yourself philosophy of the book. All forgivable problems, but worth watching out for when using the book.

   I thought touring around Japan was great fun, very easy, very safe, and only occasionally too expensive. There isn't the overtouristing so common elsewhere. I strongly recommend people to "bum around" Japan, and this book is the best guide to doing it.




3. I just finished this book today. My wife bought it prior to a 16 day trip to Japan, and is still reading it. Although the book chronicles his hitchiking from south to north in Japan, supposedly tied in with the sakura front (the blossoming of cherry blossoms as they move north) it is the best book I have ever read to gain insight into the Japanese mentality and attitudes. I've been there many times, but this book was like a refresher course on relationships with Japanese. This is a companion book to Lonely Planet's Japan Guide, at least to my way of thinking.

1 comments about Japanese Family & Culture (Jtb, Japan in Your Pocket, No 17).

1. The Illustrated Japanese Family & Culture, vol. 17 (part of the Japan in your pocket series), is both interesting and informative. This book touches on the diversity of Japanese culture from pre-historic times to modern culture in Japan. This book gives an excellent overview of the culture and lifestyle of the typical, Japanese family. It covers tradition, ceremonies, and daily life. The pictures are entertaining, and the content is concise. Chapter headings are written in both English and Japanese. The Illustrated Japanese Family and Culture, Vol. 17, gives a wide-angle view of the Japanese lifestyle today.

No comments about Japan Through American Eyes: The Journal of Francis Hall, 1859-1866.

No comments about Insight Guides Tokyo Smart Guide (Insight Smart Guides).

No comments about Glimpses Of An Unfamiliar Japan.

5 comments about Frommer's(r) Shanghai, 2nd Edition.

1. I haven't even left for Shanghai yet and I know this book is a disappointment in comparing it with my friend's Lonely Planet and doing some quick online research. It said there weren't any youth hostels (there are several) and the book is lacking a metro map and even a decent street map! The "exploring Shanghai" section is embarrassing small, I don't know if I would be able to keep myself occupied during my visit if this were to be my only guide.



2. This book gives you an easy overview over attractions and the maps are quite fullfilling. Really a good guide book.
   It could just be me, but I think there is to much info on hotels and restaurants. I'm normally the person to think "there is a lot of people in that restaurant we just passed - Lets go eat there". Regarding hotels I tend to book from home at the internet and just need the star rating, the website and "tips on how to get the best rate".
   But if you flip through the hotel and restaurant pages, everything looks to be squeezed in and if you need it - then you REALLY need it - I guess that I would be really angry, if I ended up stranded in Shanghai without a good hotel listing ;-)
   So the only negative I have is the quality of the paper. I think you will wear the book down if you go a lot to Shanghai.
   Ole, Denmark



3. Some of the previous reviews are about the 2nd edition which was weak. The 3rd edition appears to be a significant rewrite, and is much better. All the salient info is there, from an author who obviously has not only "been there" but understands the nuances of Chinese culture. Can't wait for the 4th edition!



4. The maps make it very hard to figure out where you are, and all the pages look alike. You'd be much better served with the Time Out or Lonely Planet guides.



5. This book has a few more useful pieces of information that Lonely Planet may not have but I found the LP format to be better laid out. This book does better than LP in the respect of including the Chinese characters on the city maps and also for destinations, hotels, addresses, etc.

1 comments about Fodor's Tokyo's 25 Best, 6th Edition (25 Best).

1. While in Italy, I traveled with the compact and informative "Venice's 25 Best" and "Florence's 25 Best". They had their flaws - some strange restaurant suggestions - but overall, they really helped for planning out each day.
   
   I bought "Tokyo's 25 Best" for fun, thinking that it may get me hyped for a future trip to Tokyo. It was shipped with a number of other books, including "Frommer's Japan", "Eyewitness Travel Japan", and "Lonely Planet Tokyo City Guide". Out of the lot, Fodor's was by far the worst. It doesn't seem up to date at all, even though this edition was just published in August of 2008. As a reviewer for the previous edition mentioned, it talks about GPS and HDTV as a revolutionary piece of technology only available in Japan. Surely that was an excusable oversight to put in one edition, but it almost seems like information from the last edition could have just been copied and pasted directly into the 6th edition's new format.
   
   Also, some suggestions that other books say are definitely not worth the time (i.e Tokyo Tower), Fodor's wholeheartedly recommends.
   
   Despite all of these flaws, the included map is amazingly compact and durable (plastic).
   
   All in all, I highly suggest "Frommer's Tokyo" or "Frommer's Japan" if you really want an informative, interesting,and updated travel guide.

2 comments about A Far Valley: Four Years in a Japanese Village.

1. Brian Moeran and his family spent four years in a rural Japanese community, watching as pots are made, attending school award ceremonies, community festivals and funerals, but mostly listening (and drinking, a great deal of drinking) as their neighbors talked about their lives, their families and their communities.

   Moeran is an anthropologist, and was doing his field work in a neighboring community at the time, and he brings an anthropologist's observant eye to his diary of daily life in rural Japan.

   This book compares quite favorably to Alan Booth's classic _The roads to Sata_, and John Morley's _Pictures from the water trade_ in the ``a gaijin looks at Japan'' genre. If anything, it improves on those works by telling the tale of one community through sixteen seasons, and being peopled by individuals with whom the author formed lasting relationships. Further, Moeran's Japanese wife provides us with an occasional peek into the Japanese woman's world that is missing from most other books of this type.

   The community Moeran describes is small and isolated. It is not representative of Japan as a whole (Moeran, in his introduction, tells how urban Japanese friends found his tales of rural Japan almost as exotic as a westerner does). Some may consider this to be a drawback, but I did not. The book still introduces us to some of the aspects of ``Japanese-ness''.




2. First off, let me say that the author gives a very honest and emotional picture of ONE Japanese valley. The fact is that Japan's ideals and norms can't be judged by the study of one village OR two villages OR three villages. Also, the characters are, in some cases, composites of more than one person, names have been changed and so on, but the events DID happen.
   After saying all that I have to state that this is a great book. It is full of humor, passion, happy interaction and tragic events. And, yes, lots of drinking. Smoking too.
   The book is based on three diaries that Brian Moeran kept during his four years living in Japan. The book is broken down into three parts, each made up of chapters which are either one sentence long to many pages long and this gives the story an interesting and timeless flow. In fact, the book is only 254 pages yet seems much longer.

2 comments about Ero-Samurai: An Obsessed Man's Loving Tribute To Japanese Women.

1. Being an admirer of Japanese chicks, and a long-term resident of Japan myself, I was pleasantly surprised at this guy's paean to the goddesses. Smiles of recognition on every page. Since this was published by a cheap-o self publishing outfit called i-Universe, I thought the quality of writing would be [...], but it was actually pretty good.



2. Two of my colleagues picked up copies of Ero-Samurai and loved it. It had them rolling on the ground with sheer joy and admiration of how colorful and expressive some of the erotic prose is. After seeing the reaction it elicited personally, I of course wondered about the book as I also happen to be an American who has lived in Japan. Any man that has set foot on the soil of that magical country will be well aware of the intense charm that Japanese women innately possess.
   
   As stated above, this book takes on the rather lofty task of attempting to share some insight into why many of us westerners find Japanese women so special.
   
   This is a subject that I'm sure many authors have thought about before but for whatever reason, none have tackled. As to why, eludes me. However that is precisely the reason this book is so special. Search elsewhere and you will find no paucity of dry, cold, and didactic literature that will safely examine subjects related to Japan.
   
   Not here my friend. This is an intensely personal journey into territory that is somewhat off limits by normal literary standards. Calling it exclusively personal would be misleading because the author does an excellent job quoting sources of classical Japanese literature supporting his ideas.
   
   Upon reading it, it dawned on me. This is an instant classic.
   
   Out of all the books I've ever read on Japan, not one has had the honesty to come forth and say what this man has said here. And for that, I congratulate him.
   
   You are one wild and crazy warrior Mr. Duff!