The major reason that we stopped in Takamatsu for the night is that we want to see the renowned Ritsurin Garden considered to be one of the top three in Japan. It is relatively close to the hotel but we do have to check out and therefore take the car to the garden. The parking lot is different from the ones we have been till now in Japan, if you pull in then a bar raises beneath the car and you cannot pull out until you pay which we hope we will be able to do when exiting.
Ritsurin is a huge garden and we decide to focus on the west side in the couple hours we have here. Right at the entrance we receive a free English speaking guide who is really helpful in explaining the garden features even though sometimes he pushes us to move forward faster than we intended.
Right after the entrance are a few buildings including a large one that together comprise a museum/shop complex. We cannot stay initially as our guide pushes as forward but we return later and it is quiet mostly and it has a few interesting exhibits about the history of the garden and the city.
Right next to it is Oteue-no-matsu a group of pine trees which were planted by members of the imperial family. Quite beautiful really.
The whole garden is based on the interplay between rocks, trees and water. It is difficult to know what is natural and what is artificial landscape and what not when even the stones are brought sometimes from large distances. One example of this is Tsurukame-matsu which is landscaped to resemble to a crane (the pine tree) on a turtle (the stone arrangement).
That doesn’t deter from the enjoyment of the garden with the well landscaped trees and stones placed in strategic places for maximum impact. There are of course also birds including pigeons and turtles and fish in the ponds.
One of the attractions of Ritsurin is the two rows of interleaved pine trees grown for over 100 years just in the right shape so that they create a wall on both sides of the path. The smaller pine trees on the south side are called Hako-matsu (box shaped pine trees) while the larger ones on the north side are Byobu-matsu (folding screen shaped pine trees).
There are of course also quite a few small creeks with bridges passing over them. The paths that we are walking on become narrower and quieter as most people use the main path through the garden.
And in the creeks and especially ponds there are fish. Lots of them. And some them seem really hungry and jump around out of happiness when seeing us hoping that we will give them some food.
There are quite a few named stones and we try to keep track with them as much as possible – that is in shape of lion, that is in shape of a peony and that is – well there is no shape there of course:).
Soon we arrive at a small tea house (Higurashitei) built in soan style with a thatched roof in 1898. It is a good place to relax but soon we are pushed forward by our guide towards Seiko an artificial pond just north of the teahouse.
Seiko is a beautiful pond with lotus flowers covering it and a red cliff (Sekiheki) providing a great contrast against the green of the garden. Sekiheki is named after the famous cliffs of the Yantze river which were immortalized in the famous prose-poem “The Red Cliff” by Su Shi. We don’t know this of course but both the guide and the informative signs do a good job of educating us of all the little subtleties in the garden. In fact there even is a waterfall near the cliffs which is artificial – in the olden days the water was pumped by humans in order for the daimyo to enjoy the waterfall.
We take some time to enjoy the many colored lotus flowers in the pond before our guide decides we had enough of this and pushes us forward.
We return past the Higurashitei tea house but now we focus on the garden which is beautifully maintained and landscaped. It looks postcard perfect like you would imagine small Japanese garden to look like.
Moving on we pass Houbiu where there are a few cycads/small palm trees presented as a gift from Okinawa by the feudal lord of Satsuma about 300 years ago.
Next we catch the first glimpse of Nanko (South Pond) with its three islands, it looks beautiful but first we are attracted by the sound of music coming from Kikugetsutei the largest tea house in Ritsurin.
As we come round it we see a lot of people playing the national instrument of Japan, koto. We listen to them play for a while before moving on and starting to walk round the lake.
We continue on around the tea house and explore a few more buildings, all is really beautiful and well landscaped but our guide continues to push us on towards the next attraction.
The trail around the lake climbs first to a great viewpoint of the lake, Hiraiho, tea house and the islands. The views are great along the trail and from Hiraiho with the landscaped islands and the teahouse as well as the bridges crossing the lakes just so for maximum effect.
We stay here for a while enjoying the views and even the guide seems taken in by the sights even though he probably saw them many times before.
Another impressive sight is a creek feeding the Nanko Lake which flows in front of a pavillion where the guide buys us some bread to throw to the fish in the lake. It is quite fun and we even get quite an audience as more people gather to see the fish jump to eat from our crumbs. After this we say good bye and thanks to our guide and have a brief time to explore the garden on our own before having to leave.
We use the time to return back to the car on a slightly different way and to enter the museum we passed on the way and that we couldn’t initially due to the guide. It is nothing that exciting but still fun to explore.
We also find a beautiful side creek with beautiful colors with green moss contrasting the reddish stones in the clear water. But now it is getting late and it is time to return to the car to leave towards Hiroshima.
Before that we have to get back our car and unfortunately it is not as simple as we expected. The machine is only in Japanese and we have somehow to enter our parking spot in the end we find a parking attendant who after some gesturing (he doesn’t speak English and we don’t speak japanese) helps us pay and we are on our way to Kotohira.
