Tokyo Condensed by Lonely Planet

We decided to join a tour while we're in Japan in March, so we will only have two days in Tokyo on our own. Then the plan is to take the bullet train (how cool is that?) to Osaka and meet our tour group, and from there we will see Osaka, Kobe, Nara, Kyoto, and some other outlying sights that I am not familiar with.

Our tour is run by a Chinese-American company based in California that my mom found through her travel agent. It will be conducted entirely in Chinese. I figure I'll just bring along my Kyoto guidebook, and as long as I can understand what time we're supposed to be back at the bus, we'll be fine. E is excited to practice his Chinese skills with our fellow groupmates.

Here's our itinerary with Signet Tours. And yes, it is in Chinese. I can't read it, and while the Google translation function does something, it doesn't quite translate this. Most of it is as unintelligible as this sample:

"Europe and the United States before learning they could not imagine people drink coffee, eating steak, Kobe makes cake. Now turn to teach them how to drink coffee, eating steak, done cake. Kobe steak, coffee and cake in the world, it must be your son."

We will be on our own in Tokyo, however, and I checked the Lonely Planet Tokyo Condensed out of the library. This has essentially the same format as the book we used in Hong Kong, so we know that it will be a good one. Especially since we only have two half-days in Tokyo, the "highlights" section of the book will come in handy. But since the whole book is a slim, pocket-sized volume of only 128 pages with well-organized and useful information, I will be able to read the entire book on the airplane and choose the sights we like best to visit.

I can't wait!

Tokyo Condensed by Lonely Planet

Tags: travel guides Tokyo, Japan Kyoto Signet Tours Lonely Planet