Hiroshima, Japan.  After a day at sea we had a nice sail in to the harbor through hundreds of islands.  The surrounding waters have hundreds of oyster beds on raised frames.  The oysters have been raised here since the Shogun era.  The weather was clear and cold, about 40 degrees.  We had to clear Japanese immigration with a temperature check, fingerprinting, and facial recognition, it took a long time to clear 580 passengers.  We skipped a tour to the Peace park, site of the 1945 atomic bomb blast as we had previously been to the Nagasaki site and thought the narrative was very biased.  As an alternative tour we took a trip to Miyajima Island that we reached by ferry boat after a short bus ride.  The island is the site of  Itsukushima, a famous Shinto shrine, that dates to 593 and is a Unesco World Heritage site.  It is built on stilts and the water comes in under it at high tide, it makes for some dramatic photos, unfortunately it was low tide when we visited. There are hundreds of small deer everywhere, they are very tame and even go into the shops.  There were many souvenir shops and other      shops selling a local specialty, a sponge cake in the shape of a maple leaf with different fillings.  There was only one ATM and it was very busy, but we did find a shop that took credit cards so we bought a selection of the cakes to try.  Tom thought this qualified as a Valentine gift.

O-Torii gate is 16.6 meters high and weighs 60 tons, it is free standing

Noel and her new friend

Tide was just starting to come in under the shrine

Machine making the small cakes

Ship's atrium decorated for Valentine's Day

Fancy Valentines desserts for afternoon tea

There were two huge ice sculptures at afternoon tea, unfortunately most passengers were on tour and did not see them.