| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
IconsFanatic
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
|
 Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:02 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
I thought the best part of LP was how it explained the train system in detail... and I think it was LP that suggested paying the W20,000 deposit to pick up a Barota card (www.barota.com) to reserve tickets online.
Anywho, with the new KTX "bullet" train out in April, the Tong-il trains are being discontinued, so that's yet another thing the LP is likely to be out of date on (despite coming out with a new edition in April). |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Joe Thanks
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Location: Dudleyville
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 10:31 pm Post subject: Re: Is the Lonely Planet guide to SK a turkey? |
|
|
Considering that its author, "Robert Storey" has been residing in Taiwan for a long time - that SHOULD tell you something.
The LP books are outlines but hopelessly dated by the time they are published. They're good reads before going to a place, but utterly useless once you arrive and get the first paycheck, really.
Joe
has spoken |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joe Thanks
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Location: Dudleyville
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 10:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| The Lemon wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The description "only good as a point of transit" or something along those lines is used much too often. |
The Korea guide, up until the 2001/02 version, was overpoweringly negative about Korea and Koreans. But the last guide changed too far the other way - for the first time, a Korean woman helped write it, and it became too positive, losing its irreverent edge. It reads more like a KNTO brochure. |
I guess this proves that the new guides can't be trusted.
Thanks for laying the smack down, Lemon.
Joe has met two Koreanas out of thousands that tell it like it is in Korea. No Kim Jeong-il like propaghanda and appologies: praise where it's deserved (and earned) and condemnation where it's deserved (and earned). Sadly, neither write books.
I'm enjoying this soujourn in Korea (though ULSAN sucks ass in hell when it comes to doing anything - if you're single and didn't travel with 10000 friends from home) but facts are facts:
South Korea is a frog in the well. No excuses. It needs to wake up or assume the position for a smack down.
Joe
has spoken |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
indytrucks
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Location: The Shelf
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 11:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Joe Thanks wrote: |
| The Lemon wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The description "only good as a point of transit" or something along those lines is used much too often. |
The Korea guide, up until the 2001/02 version, was overpoweringly negative about Korea and Koreans. But the last guide changed too far the other way - for the first time, a Korean woman helped write it, and it became too positive, losing its irreverent edge. It reads more like a KNTO brochure. |
I guess this proves that the new guides can't be trusted.
Thanks for laying the smack down, Lemon.
Joe has met two Koreanas out of thousands that tell it like it is in Korea. No Kim Jeong-il like propaghanda and appologies: praise where it's deserved (and earned) and condemnation where it's deserved (and earned). Sadly, neither write books.
I'm enjoying this soujourn in Korea (though ULSAN sucks ass in hell when it comes to doing anything - if you're single and didn't travel with 10000 friends from home) but facts are facts:
South Korea is a frog in the well. No excuses. It needs to wake up or assume the position for a smack down.
Joe
has spoken |
I don't read or buy LP guides to analyze whether or not they have an anti/pro country bias. The LP for any country is peppered with their own political and ideological asides. LP constantly has it's own axe to grind and it does so consistently. I simply choose to ignore them.
I read the LP for travel information. Nothing more, nothing less. To that end, the LP can be "trusted". If I wanted a comprehensive assessment of Koreans or Korean culture, I would read something else. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joe Thanks
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Location: Dudleyville
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 1:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
| indytrucks wrote: |
I read the LP for travel information. Nothing more, nothing less. To that end, the LP can be "trusted". |
So you trust a book put together by a guy (Robert Storey) who hasn't lived in Korea for a LONG time (at least 5 years)?
You're a VERY trusting soul.
Joe
is not |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mb2086
Joined: 10 Feb 2004
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| You have to start somewhere and I find LP guides give a good basic idea, especially with the essentials, but any guide book cannot fully prepare you - you just find things out first hand and by talking to people. That's it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Donghae
Joined: 24 Dec 2003
Location: Fukuoka, Japan
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
I haven't seen the most recent edition but the last one I saw (4th edition I think - the one with the purple cover and the old guy on the cover) I thought was horrendous for something claiming to be a serious travel guide.
As the lemon mentioned above it contained an awful lot of negativity and condescension towards the country and people. Fair enough, as somebody mentioned earlier, if you're only after travel info, you can probably see thru or ignore that kind of crap. But it wasn't really any use as a travel guide either. I found city after city with commentaries to the effect of "not much point coming here, but it's useful for transport to somewhere else." I came to realise having myself found plenty of potential places of interest in many cities so described by LP, that what he really meant was "I didn't find much here as I didn't know/didn't bother finding out where to look."
And in my experience therein lies the problem with many LP guides I've seen. (I'd make similar criticisms of the Japan editions I've looked at) Serious, reliable guides though they make themselves out to be, they often seem not much more than very, very subjective accounts of how one, or maybe a couple of people have seen the place. In a cheap fanzine type of thing or on a one-person run website you'd be naive to expect much more than that. But LP makes a lot of money on claiming to be something much more.
I usually find rough guides to be much, much better, although I don't think they've got one for Korea yet?? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 11:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Joe Thanks wrote: |
So you trust a book put together by a guy (Robert Storey) who hasn't lived in Korea for a LONG time (at least 5 years)?
You're a VERY trusting soul.
Joe
is not |
I'm not sure if you're simply being ignorant or if you're being deliberately disingenuous, but you appear to be trying to give the impression that Robert wrote that guide single-handedly without ever stepping foot in Korea, and I believe you know as well as I do that Robert Story was asked by Lonely Planet to update an out-of-date edition of the Seoul and the Korea guide (of which he was not the original author), and that in researching this update he visited Korea on at least two occassions for the Seoul guide alone, and spoke with both expats and Koreans.
Is the Korea guide perfect? No it's not. Could it be better? Certainly. But I imagine this could be said about most of the travel guidebooks out there- the world keeps changing faster than guidebooks can ever hope to keep up with, and the rate of change is faster in Korea than many other countries (e.g. if you were in charge of updating the guide to France, for example, you'd have a lot less work to do even though it's a much larger physical area to cover).
I can safely say this of the LP guides and the Korea guide in particular- it is much better than most of its competitors- if you don't believe me take a look at the bookshelves and check the content and publishing dates of the other guidebooks. I used a Fodor's Korea that was only 2 years old and it was so bad I actually threw it in a garbage can while on vacation.
And so what if Robert no longer lives in Korea? The LP guidebooks, like most other guidebooks, are meant to guide first-time visitors rather than long term (1 yr+) expats. To expect any of them to be comprehensive enough to satisfy somebody living in a suburb of Ulsan for a year is completely unrealistic, and to that effect living in Korea as an expat doesn't have many advantages over multiple visits for this kind of writing- in fact, I'd say a pretty good argument could be made to the contrary.
But if the LP guide doesn't satisfy I've heard that there is a Korean guidebook that is quite good.
Robert seemed to be a nice enough guy the two times I met him, but I really can't say I know anything about him except that he lives in Taiwan and was not too impressed at all with the direction the Lonely Planet had been taking with regard to the style and content of the LP guides (i.e.- the swing away from the 'off the beaten path' guides for backpackers to the more accessible [read: commercial, family/business-person oriented] style they now seem to take).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you have a personal axe to grind against Robert? I know you met him in Seoul, did you also know him in Taiwan? Is there some hidden story between you two that is generating your animosity towards him?
And it would be unfair of me to ask you this without disclosing my own interest in the matter- I am one of the people who Robert contacted for input. If you want to know what my input was you can compare the sections and maps dealing with SE Seoul in the '95 version of the Seoul guide to the '99 version. A small contribution to be sure, but at least I can sit here and be smug that I actually volunteered to help update a guide that I found to be lacking rather than just sit around and complain about it on a message board.
Bulsajo is thankful he is not enrolled in Joe's school. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mb2086
Joined: 10 Feb 2004
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 4:05 am Post subject: |
|
|
| It's worth remembering that LP guides are designed for travellers and not for expats planning to stay for long periods. It assumes that most readers will only be in Korea for about two weeks and therefore it has to narrow down the best and most likely places that people will visit. No guide will ever satidfy everyone and you would be quite naive to believe everything you read and pretend that your minds 'image' of a country will be satisfoed when you actually get to see the place. Nevertheless for anyone who doesn't know the first thing about visiting Korea (or any other country) it contains a-lot of useful info. Lonely Planet also have one of the best image sites on the net - http://www.lonelyplanetimages.com/frame_default.jsp It's worth also mentioning that the latest Rough Guides are pretty good too though I havn't seen the Korean edition. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
tokki
Joined: 26 Jul 2003
|
| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 4:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| LP is trash. Pure and simple. The SE Asia guide I took on my vacation was absolute rubbish. TOTALLY useless. I will never buy LP books again. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 6:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Joe Thanks wrote: |
You need to be enrolled in Joe's school, where having a book overseen by a guy who no longer lives in the country they write about (Storey's been gone a LONG time) and and a mere two "visits" and talking to his kexpat buddies ='s he shouldnt' be putting it together. |
Once again you are being deliberately disingenuous: the two mere 'visits' you speak of totalled more than a month.
Why not be honest? Tell us about your beef with Robert.
I'm not trying to defend the LP Korea guide- it is what it is, and if some people think it's crap, so be it. I'd just like to hear why you have such a hard-on for Robert.
| Quote: |
| Thank for fessing up he talked to you. It means the book can be trusted less. |
Why is that? What do you know of my experience in Korea? What is suspect besides my dislike for you?
*edited by Lemon, 11:46pm* |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joe Thanks
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Location: Dudleyville
|
| Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 6:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Bulsajo wrote: |
Why not be honest? Tell us about your beef with Robert. |
None. Tell us about your "hard-on" that you feel the need to watch his 'back' when someone LEGITIMATELY points out the dude oversees the Korean edition and yet the guy hasn't lived here for YEARS and then you not only confirm it - but you get snitty and THEN admit your own vested interest in it and "contribution" to it.
| Quote: |
Why is that? What do you know of my experience in Korea? What is suspect besides my dislike for you? |
You love me, that's why you always slag me. You've got a "hard-on" for me.
Scary, actually.
Joe
schooled 'em again |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2004 12:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
Well, if you want to see a travel guide done right, check this out:
Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry
Be sure to check out the photo gallery, featuring the worker at the Sjerezo nuclear power plant. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
just because
Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Location: Changwon - 4964
|
| Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2004 10:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Written by Australias D Generation.
Some of the funniest comedians I have ever seen. Everyone in Australia has been a fan of some form of their work.
From The panel - Late Show - The Castle(classic Australian movie).
If anybody not from Australia doesn't know what I'm talking about i highly recommend them.
Also check out the Moldavian Idol link - very funny(I suppose an acquired taste though) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 11:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
I couldn't find the Molvanian Idol link at that website (or did you really mean MOLDAVIAN Idol?).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somebody who found the LP guide useful. Thanks JLB, you've given me an idea of how we can objectively rate the Lonely Planet Guide...
Let's put some meat on the bones of this argument/cage fight/Royal Rumble (or whatever the hell it is that wrestlers do):
Here's a challenge to Joe, Tokki and the rest of the "LP is utter crap" club to put your money where your mouth is:
Which internationally available Korea Guidebook
(i.e. available in any large bookstore in the US/Can/UK/Aus/NZ, e.g. Fodor's, Michelin, Berlitz etc., and DON'T try to tell me that the Hollym published Moon guide is "internationally available")
would you recommend over the LP for finding tourist information on: PALACES OF SEOUL?
And Why?
Feel free to quote particular passages to back your argument.
-BSJ
Waiting to see what kind of a teacher Joe's 'school' has.
Joe, if you're right then show me and I'll admit to being 'schooled'. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
