Yacht travel in the Seto inland sea ④ Takamatsu【Morning time】

We thought to go to each island from Takamatsu as a day trip, or staying one day in the island and returning to Takamatsu next day. We were lucky because the weather has beeing fine, so that we went around the islands by yacht. But if it rains, the sea will be rough and the visibility become bad. So, in order to spend the time profitable in the Seto inland sea, I thought that it could be an option to make Takamatsu as the starting point for going around by yacht for the good weather, and by ferry for the bad weather. Of course, our initial objective of this travel was, going around the islands by yacht, so it was not planned to stay in Takamatsu for a long time. However, as we were in Takamatsu, there was no reason that we would not go to the city. Off course, we should eat Sanuki udon.

Then we went to the city, and we decided to go to the restaurant to eat udon. 
In Kagawa, they eat udon even in the morning, so that it was crowded in the restaurant even it was early for the lunch.
I ordered a kamatama udon. There were many tempuras looked delicious, but I thought if I eat too much, I could not eat dinner, so I decided to add only some fried balls on the udon. Thinking about the dinner from the morning time.... 

(I think that it is so delicious to eat fried balls with egg, so the kamatama udon is my favourite dish. The soft fried balls with egg and the firm noodles of the veritable Sanuki udon are the different from the ones in Tokyo. I remembered that my friend from Kagawa said that he would never try the udon in Tokyo.)

So I ate "morning udon" (I wonder if there is a word like "morning udon"), then I went to the park Ritsurin Koen from Takayama station by train.

(This park is the biggest park among the parks listed in the "Special Place of Scenic Beauty" <日本の特別名勝 Nihon no Tokubetsu Meishō>.  It takes around 2 hours to go round the park, so you will see how big it is.)

When I bought an entrance ticket and I gazed at the big pannel, a volunteer guide came and asked me if I have any question. 

(When you visit a place for the sightseeing, it is better to go around with a guide than going alone without any information. The guide person tells a lot of interesting information and reply to any question. But I think that it is better to ask question or talk about various things than just listening to the guide person. Like this, we can have many information.)

For example, I have been informed that there are many tourists from the West. Before that, there were many Asian people. I have already been informed that there weare many Asian tourists because there are many flights between Takamatsu airport and Asian countries, but recently, there are many Western people who come for the works of art in Seto inland sea area. I remember that there were many Western people in Shodoshima and Takamatsu, and I heard many those languages. 

I talked about those topics with the guide person. Then I realized that there are many pine beautiful trees but where are the chestnut trees? Ritsurin means the woods of Chestnuts trees. So I asked to the guide person about this question. 

He laughed and said "There are around ten chestnut trees, and that's all." Indeed, the name of the park is Ritsurin Koen, but there are not many trees even from the very early stage. He said that the reason of the name of the park was not discovered.

But, anyway, whatever the name of the park or there are no chestnut trees, this park is so beautiful and we should admire the beauty of the pine trees. This is a fantastic park in the centre of the city, and there are the people who maintain it every day. We do not see any modern builing or contemporary landscape from the park. The atmosphere of this park is apart from the present day, and we can go to this park and spend the time. It is fantastic.

I walked around the park by thinking about those things and found that I spent too much time there. I quickly came back to the boat. Our next destination is Naoshima, the island highlights of the travel.