Had a late breakfast at a cafe that serves waffles in the North part of the train station.   Yes back there again.  Afterwards we discovered a large staircase that appears to go up forever to the open sky.  We went up and found a garden on top of the roof and a great view of the city when you are 10 to 12 stores above ground.  Then took a train to Mishima to see Mt. Fuji.  Jerry had seen the mountain on Monday morning when he took the train to Tokyo.  We have been riding on the Shinkansen bullet trains.  They roll along at speeds up to 260 km per hour (156 mph).  There are three classes, Nozomi with only a couple stops, Hikari with more stops and then the Kodama with even more stops.  We only get to ride on the Hikari or Kodama trains.  It is something to be stopped in a station when the Nozomi rolls through.

Mishima is the closest major city to Mt. Fuji on our rail line.  The weather was mostly cloudy and our choices were to hang around the city and hope it would clear up or to take a bus or train to a closer location.  We felt the second choice would have made it too hard to catch our 6 PM train.  We spent 3 hours walking around Mishima, found some interesting places, met some friendly people who walked up and started talking to us, but no Mt. Fuji.  (The locals later told us that you have to see it in winter when the air is clear.  In late spring and summer it is too hazy.)  Even the local Art Gallery was closed for the day.  Late afternoon rain showers chased us back to the rail station where we caught the train to Shizuoka to have dinner with Annie Leunberger.  Annie is teaching English at a school in Shizuoka and has been living in Japan since last August.  She took us to a Japanese-Mexican restaurant.  Note us with chopsticks.  Great to be able to talk to someone from the Bay Area again.  Got the last train to Kyoto and were back in our room by midnight.  We will get another chance to see Mt. Fuji on the way back to the airport Sunday morning.