Lonely Planet Kyoto [ペーパーバック]

I'm writing this from Kyoto, where I had hoped to use this book to help me get around and find places to eat and shop. Its so poorly organized that the maps are unusable. If I go to a district, I want to be able to find shops, restaurants, andplaces to visit easily. I can't do that with this book. They are indexed on the map, but do not appear together in the text. Also, I think there must be places listed on the maps (with no explanation) that are no where else in the book. Many of the restaurants listed are also unfindable, perhaps because they have gone out of business. This is not my first time in Kyoto, and I know the layout of the city fairly well. If I had to rely completely on this book, I would be very unhappy. This book has not been helpful in leading me to specific places at all. The general information about Kyoto is ok, but I wanted helpful suggestions for getting around. Thus, well indexed maps are indispensible and this book's maps are cumbersome to say the least. Also the book's index is totally inadequate and the exchange rates listed are a joke they are so out of date. Other information is wrong too.
Sorry for the harsh comments, but this is a bad book.

Lonely Planet fills a niche by being a good source of information you are not likely to find in other guides, like the funky and the inexpensive, but really I wish they would make their guides more user friendly.

For one the maps are extremely frustrating to use. The information on them is numbered, and the keys are either on the page before or the page after the map, so you constantly find yourself looking at the wrong key. The info would fit on the maps themselves, but they chose to use keys without taking full advantage of them by not including the page number of each item's description. Also each map points in a different direction and is a different scale from the others, very confusing.

I also found the index to be lacking some very obvious entries, I don't remember specific examples but I do remember being puzzled by the index on several occasions. By the end of my trip I had corrected many of these problems by penciling them in, I suggest you do this on the airplane so you will spend less time on the street scratching your head.

This guide also has the nasty habit of inserting chapters in the middle of chapters. Sometimes you don't realise there is more information on subject you are reading, you are expected to look past the following chapter.

I found the information in the Kyoto book to be somewhat more up to date than the Lonely Planet guides I have used for other cities. I have learned not to rely too heavily on their specific recommendations, but they usually put me into the right neighborhood for what I am looking for.

Over the years I have been a repeat customer of these guides, although grudgingly. I find them to be a good source of getting the feel of a place before I go somewhere. Lonely Planet is going to lose my business real soon if they don't redesign their guides and become more diligent about updating their material.

I used this book along with three others on a recent trip to Kyoto. Some of the negative criticisms of earlier reviewers seem to have been corrected, though not entirely. But no other general guide (with a Kyoto section as part of a Japan guide) was more useful. I have some criticisms, but it is a useful guide.

Maps could have been more detailed (as well as descriptions of where things were). Restaurants were shown on maps but, at best, within a block or two of where they were. Addresses for restaurants were given (doubtless accurate using Kyoto address standards) but don't describe the exact street each is on. For example, we went to Ichi-Ban (a yakitori restaurant in the Gion district) which was merely described as "3 minutes" from the "Sanjo Keihan" subway stop. The map in the book suggested it was on Sanjo-dori ("dori" means street or avenue) but the address didn't say so. The book also said it had "a" red lantern out in front (which is used by yakitori or grill restaurants). We did find it by asking a nearby florist shop, but it would have been useful if the description had said it was "on" Sanjo-dori and also that it had "several" small red lanterns and that it did not have an English name on the facade. (It was a good restaurant, incidentally, once we found it.) The same was true for Omen, a restaurant near the Silver Pavillion. No description other than it was "near" the Silver Pavillion and was shown on a very small map of the general area. A couple of local vendors directed us there. It is two short blocks south of the approach to the Temple on the street used by Bus 32. (It was a superb restaurant for lunch--I recommend it highly--as well as the sister restaurant on Shijo-dori a few feet west of the south end of Pontocho alley, a famous night location.) There were some recommended restaurants we didn't even try to find--partly because the maps and description seemed inadequate, but we found enough to satisfy us on a five day visit.

The book could have been more useful in describing the details of the bus system. The busses cover most of the city quite well and the Tourist Bureau has a good (though very hard to follow--it takes intense study) map of bus routes. The presumption in the book is that most people will start from Kyoto station to reach various tourist sites. But, in my opinon, the most useful hotels are located within a third of a mile from the intersection of Shijo and Karawamachi "dori[s]" and several useful busses do traverse this intersection but don't go to the train station. Further, though "stops" are listed on the Kyoto bus map, the actual stops are often a block or so from the "listed" intersection and different bus numbers may have different stops for the intersection For example, busses at the Karasuma-Shijo intersection that traverse Shijo-dori stop either a block West of Karasuma OR a block East of Karasuma. We figured it out, but it took a couple of days as well as intense study of the Kyoto bus route map.

(Busses are useful in reaching most tourist sites. The main exception is the Kyomizera-dera where the busses deliver people some distance away. A cab gets one much closer--though still probably a quarter mile away--and if one is not "athleticly" inclined, cabs are a useful alternative. Our cab there (from Karasuma and Shijo-dori) was a bit more than twice what a bus ticket would have cost.)

Cabs are in general a reasonable alternative both in terms of time saved and for those for whom walking isn't an ideal alternative (we are in our 70-s and though young in spirit do have some limitations which makes excessive walking less desireable if it can be avoided). Except for distant locations a cab ride will be between 600 and 800 yen and a bus ride for two is 440 yen and takes much longer. (Our maximum cab ride bill was 1300 yen but it was for a long distance with bad traffic. A daily pass on busses is 500 yen each.) Avoid a cab if you are going to traverse the area surrounding the Karasumi-Shijo intersection in the evening. It is VERY crowded and a cab will take many, many minutes to traverse the area (with the meter running.) But to the Golden Pavillion or the Silver Pavillion a bus ride is substantially cheaper than a cab. A cab would be even more expensive to Arashyiama--and the Kiefuku railroad (old fashioned streetcars) is much cheaper--and gets one to the center of things, unlike the Japan Rail alternatve.

The hotel recommendations seemed to be useful. We stayed in the Karasuma hotel, near the Shijo-Karasuma intersection and it was a decent and not outrageously priced hotel and a convenient location--less than a third of a mile from the epicenter of evening "action." Hotels near the Karawamachi-Sanjo intersection might be slightly closer to the "action" but they are substantially more expensive.

The book recommends most of the main tourist attractions. We were most interested in gardens and it did a decent job of describing them. We found the "Sento Gosho" the "retired emperors" palace in the old Imperial Palace grounds to be the "best" garden we visited--it is in the "stroll garden" category--vistas appearing as one "strolls" through the garden. It is better than the actual old "Imperial Palace" which has a much smaller garden (and the tour of it concentrates on the buildings rather than the garden). One needs to go to the Imperial Palace office and show a passport but it can be done shortly in advance of the visit (there are two tours a day of the Sento Gosho, the first at 11am). The Golden Temple and the Silver Temple are three star attractions, but the Ryoan-ji (the most famous of the Zen gardens) is being renovated and part of the famous "garden" is obscured. It is still worth a visit, however--though it will be closed for a couple of months in winter 2010-11. Nanzin-ji in the eastern sector of Kyoto is almost as spectacular as a Zen garden and Konchi-in in the Nanzen complex is close behind. (There are four temples in the Nanzen complex worth visiting--a real treasure trove for those who love Japanese gardens.) We didn't get to Daisen-in complex of gardens not far from the Golden Pavillion which also has famous Zen gardens but judging from pictures, they are worth a visit, time permitting, if Zen gardens (as opposed to Stroll Gardens) are of special interest. We also didn't get to the Katsura garden, reportedly a spectacular "stroll garden" in the suburbs (it also requires permission from the Imperial Palace office) partly because it is difficult and time consuming to reach and partly because the "Gardens of Kyoto" book, mentioned immediately below, suggested that the tour is so "fast" as to substantially reduce the pleasure of visiting it. If we'd had a couple more days we would have visited it (and the Daisen-in complex), but time didn't permit.

Other useful books if you are going to be in Kyoto for a substantial amount of time: Treib and Herman "The Gardens of Kyoto"; Clancy "Exploring Kyoto" (on foot in Kyoto); and Durston "Old Kyoto" (authentic shops and restaurants in Kyoto). The last is useful mainly if one is interested in purchasing "authentic" Kyoto products but it also has some restaurant and Ryoken reviews.

One almost final point: If you are going to be in Kyoto in autumn--aim for the fourth week in October. We were there in the second week and some trees were beginning to turn to Autumn colors, very beautiful but not spectacular. The third week would have been better than the second week and some guide books recommend November. On one visit I can't judge, but even in the second week dusk came shortly after 5pm (as best as I can tell, there is no daylight savings time in Japan) and by November dusk would be a lot earlier. I don't know about the Spring. Cherry blossoms are, apparently, capricious in when they bloom but I'm sure in many gardens of Kyoto they are spectacular.

The final point: We didn't get to Nara, nearby--partly because it appears not to have spectacular gardens (which was our primary interest) but I suspect it is worth a trip, time permitting. Somewhat further afield, Himeji Castle (in Himeji) is spectacular, described (I think accurately) as the finest extant castle in all of Japan--one can climb to the top; and Korakuen, a garden in Okayama--"classified" as one of the "three best" in all of Japan is worth a visit. So is Kurashiki, a short distance west of Okayama, with an extremely attractive well preserved "feudal warehouse" area (including a museum with, of all things, a lovely El Greco painting--and a few Impressionist paintings as well). Kanazawa, north of Kyoto has another of the "three best" gardens, but we didn't get there.