Day 5: Ritsurin Garden, Udon, and Okayama

Day 5 was a day trip out from Okayama to Takamatsu, with Ritsurin Garden as the main reason to go. The route gave the day a clear shape: station, train, garden, and then back again.

Ritsurin Garden was the centre of it: ponds, bridges, pines, paths, and the kind of careful garden design that makes you slow down without needing to be told to.

There was time around Takamatsu before returning to Okayama, including the proper Sanuki udon stop that the day needed. Back in Okayama, dinner was at Gyoro Hachi near the station, an izakaya evening of seafood, yakitori, and the hotel-area rhythm of being settled in one base for another night.