Thrills of Tokyo, Chills of Planning

LITTLE ADVENTURES IN TOKYO: 36 Thrills for the Urban Explorer by Rick Kennedy (Stone Bridge Press, $10.95 paper) and THE JAPAN VACATION PLANNER by Charles H. Northup (Stone Bridge Press, $12.95 paper).

“I think Tokyo is a wonderful city and I enjoy showing it off,” writes Rick Kennedy, an American who has lived in the city for 15 years, editing English-language journals (such as Tokyo Weekender) and writing Tokyo restaurant guides, among other things. It quickly becomes apparent that he has a connoisseur’s appreciation of the place, and an insider’s knowledge of “Strange Sidetrips and Unusual Ways of Having Fun” (to quote a second subtitle to the book) within its precincts. These include a temple where beginners can get a sampling of Zen monastic discipline, a tuna auction at the famous Tsukiji fish market, a Japanese-style Finnish sauna, a classic nomiya (sort of a Japanese version of a tapas bar) and a venue for high-stakes hydroplane races. Kennedy is a good writer (“Young Tokyo’s vision of the West,” he notes at one point, “is colored like a cheap religious oleograph, shot through with tongue-in-cheek romantics, and awash with camp”), and he brings Tokyo wonderfully alive, even to the reader who has never been near the place. I wish London, Paris, New York and about a hundred other cities had a Kennedy to do a similar job for them.

“The Japan Vacation Planner” shares a publisher with the previous volume, but it’s about as different as can be. A self-styled “pre-guidebook” (whose lengthy subtitle is “How to Be Your Own Tour Guide, Spend Less, Enjoy More, and Go Anywhere You Want”), this is in effect a travel textbook, complete with charts and graphs and worksheets. Chapters include “Working with the Train Book” (the train schedules, that is), “Getting into Town from the Airport” and “Airlines Flying to Japan from the U.S.” There are also language tips (the section on alternate Japanese scripts is dizzying), health advisories, even advice on how to pack for Japan. The detail is as impressive as the tone is dry. It would be tempting to describe this book and “Little Adventures” as complementary volumes for the Japan-bound, one offering the poetry and humor, the other providing the nuts and bolts. The only trouble is that Northup’s “Vacation Planner” makes Japan sound so daunting to the traveler that you might end up not wanting to go.

THE NEW YORK TIMES GUIDE TO RESTAURANTS IN NEW YORK CITY, 1993-94, by Bryan Miller (Times Books, $15 paper).

Miller is almost certainly the most powerful restaurant critic in the country, in terms of his ability to make or break an eatery with a review (and/or a rating). Fortunately for restaurants and restaurant-goers alike, he is also one of the most conscientious and knowledgeable. This almost-pocket-sized volume, densely packed with some 300 of his recent reviews, is thus probably the most trustworthy and comprehensive guide there is to eating out in Gotham today.

THE BAJA CATCH: A Fishing, Travel & Remote Camping Manual for Baja California, second edition, by Neil Kelly and Gene Kira (Apples & Oranges, $19.95 paper).

You can fish with a bent pin on the end of a piece of twine, I guess, and you can fish with $100,000 worth of gear from a million-dollar boat on the Turkish Riviera. If you fish somewhere in between, however, with good but not extravagant equipment, from a beach or a modest outboard or a rented seat on a day boat in, say, Baja California, this book will prove invaluable. Fishing maps, camping tips, candid appraisals of various fishing grounds, even tips for surviving Baja’s Highway One are included. Then there’s a “Rogue’s Gallery” of “the fish you’ll really catch in Baja,” a brief crash course in Spanish for the Baja angler, and a travel checklist entitled “Hey, I Thought You Brought the Toilet Paper!” The authors plead with readers to “catch and release,” incidentally. “Take only what you intend to eat personally,” they write, “and let the others go!” Good for them.

Quick Trips:

PLACES TO GO WITH CHILDREN IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, seventh edition, by Elizabeth Pomada (Chronicle Books, $9.95 paper). Hundreds of ways to keep the youngsters amused (and maybe help educate them in the process), from the Barbie Doll Hall of Fame in Palo Alto to the Confusion Hill and Mountain Train Ride near Garberville.

THE WORLD’S BEST: The Ultimate Book for the International Traveler, edited by Kathleen Peddicord, fifth edition (Agora Inc., $29). This large-format guidebook to what are said to be the finest hotels, restaurants, museums, parks, sports facilities, wines, shopping and more, on six continents, is an ambitious work and will doubtless be of interest to travelers who don’t want to waste their time on “inferior” experiences.

THE VISITOR’S GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF THE EASTERN NATIONAL PARKS/UNITED STATES AND CANADA by Roland H. Wauer (John Muir Publications, $15.95 paper). Despite its title, which suggests a serious (and not exactly scintillating) bird-watchers’ Baedeker, this is a very accessible, readable layperson’s introduction to avian behavior and the visual glories of birds and their habitats, aimed at helping visitors better appreciate the parks and an important portion of their fauna.