An air of seclusion still hangs over Shikoku. This is despite the building of Japan's greatest civil-engineering white elephants -- three grandiose and grandiosely debt-ridden bridge systems that span the Inland Sea and connect the island with Honshu.

The smallest of this country's four main islands is also its least visited, and that has remained the case since the first of those bridges, the Seto Ohashi, opened in 1988, close to the Shikoku city of Takamatsu. In this city in Kagawa Prefecture, the feature that is likely to be highest on most visitor itineraries is the garden known as Ritsurin Koen. With its "three most famous views" and seven gods of good fortune, Japan has quite a fondness for odd-numbered lists, and so it is with gardens.

Strangely, Ritsurin does not figure among Japan's Three Beautiful Gardens, but it is sprawling and agreeable. A couple of kilometers from the main station, Ritsu- rin has a reasonably central location and is a popular spot among locals. But since Ritsurin extends over 75 hectares, Japan's largest "cultural asset" garden is easily able to absorb big visitor numbers and never seems especially crowded. Divided into two distinct sections, north and south, the garden is built around a series of 13 scenic mounds and six interconnecting ponds. Within the waters of those ponds glide small turtles and a sizable population of multicolored carp, which, despite their sizable girth of small tree trunks, visitors still feel impelled to ply with yet more sustenance from the prodigious amount of fish food on sale.