Guidebook Another Travel Guide Riga now also in Japanese
To broaden the notion of Riga as an exciting tourism destination to a growing circle of foreign travelers and to draw to our capital also attention of people from East Asia, the alternative guidebook "Another Travel Guide Riga" will now be available also in Japanese. Marking this event, a presentation of the guidebook will be held at Latvian Embassy in Tokyo on June 19.
The guidebook "Another Travel Guide Riga" will be available in bookstores in Tokyo and across the country starting from June 20.
The guidebook is aimed at transforming foreign travelers' perception of Riga and encouraging them to take a look at it from an entirely different standpoint. We aspire to present the capital of Latvia in its full diversity - from symbolic landmarks of the city to remote and well-hidden attractions that only an insider would know about. Thanks to a successful collaboration with culture and art publishing company Doyosha, also Japanese-speaking travelers will now be able to acquaint themselves with the most unusual and significant spots of Riga from the perspective of knowledgeable insiders.
One of the initiators of "Another Travel Guide Riga" Japanese edition is a Latvian lady Arta Tabaka, who lives in Tokyo for several years already, studies Japanese cinema at Nihon University Department of Visual Arts and cooperates with the publishing company Doyosha. "In Tokyo, you will often be asked questions like, "Where is Riga?", "What it's like there?", "What's going on there?". Since not a single book was available in Japanese about Riga, it occurred that it would be great to create one. Familiarizing ourselves with "Another Travel Guide Riga", we realized that it relates perfectly to our perception of a wonderful Riga guide, both information and design wise."
The first "Another Travel Guide Riga" guidebook was published in the end of 2009 in English. Then followed editions also in Russian and German, making Japanese the forth language in which this guidebook is now available to the world. Responding to travelers' great interest and demand, the English guidebook has been reprinted already twice and in May 2012 it was republished also in Russian. The creative team of "Another Travel Guide Riga" is trying to keep its contents constantly up to date and to include in it all the developments and fresh attractions of the city, and therefore every new edition is carefully revised, rewritten and updated.
The alternative guidebook "Another Travel Guide Riga" is both a handbook that summarizes information on the best hotels, museums, cultural venues, cafés, shops, restaurants and ways of Riga inhabitants, and a style book presenting an artistic value of its own, demonstrating therefore a different and creative way of visual thinking and standing out significantly among already accustomed tourism guides.
The concept of the guidebook is co-authored by fashion and travel journalist Una Meistere, art critique and curator Daiga Rudzāte and artist Kirils Kirasirovs. "Another Travel Guide Riga" is published by the Internet magazine for independent travelers www.anothertravelguide.com and the cultural projects agency "Indie".