Tokyo Station Blues

Let's establish some basic facts:  1).  I am not directionally challenged, 2). I am comfortable in large crowds, and 3). I'm not careless.  How then can one location I visit repeatedly cause me so much grief?  Enter Tokyo Station and I'm off my game.  The ground under me must shift into another dimension.  If it were an isolated incident here or there, if these mysterious encounters with confusion happened elsewhere with similar frequency I would be more inclined to acknowledge the possibility I just might be slipping.  This is not the case.  There's something about Tokyo Station that throws me.

I've already established with a series of rants on multiple sites the fact I had my first encounter with a pickpocket last week.  Yes, in Tokyo Station.  Of course.  Again, I'm not one of these careless, "Oh look how much cash I have," or "Let me just hold my wallet in my hand as I walk" people.  I've been in large crowds more often than not in my life.  I'm cognisant of the issue of personal space, especially here in Japan.  So, no.  I was not being dumb, naive, or flighty last week as some deft pickpocket grabbed my wallet from inside my purse and made off with my last dime.  That, dear friends, was Tokyo Station playing a very nasty trick on me.

I've long since found Tokyo Station to be a maze I can't seem to traverse well.  The store my co-worker seems to be able to find every time is no longer there when I retrace the steps he surely took last time.  Lest I acknowledge I can't find my way through a simple train station, I've had to stop myself from texting him several times, "Where is this place again?" 

I seem to enter the station from a different entrance each time.  This is quite an accomplishment, mind you, as there are only six entrances (that I know of), and I've been through the station dozens of times.  Granted, the station went through a major makeover the past year.  A large brick structure that looks like it belongs in downtown London versus Tokyo, my understanding is the number of entrances did not change.  So, that reason doesn't apply either as to why once I'm inside everything seems to be somewhere else.  Surely that store wasn't here last time?

Today, as I proudly make my way through Tokyo Station, even finding a bakery that has the most wonderful cranberry and cream cheese rolls (the same bakery I've looked for over the past ten or so trips) I congratulate myself on successfully navigating myself through with ease.  Perhaps the culmination of minor annoyances ending in last week's pickpocket incident--the crescendo of minor to major trouble--knocked my station mojo back into place.  Do I dare hope?

No.  Of course not.  Why do I let myself think these things?  Standing on the platform, I think through which door to enter my train car from.  When bullet trains head from north to south cars and seats are in order, starting with one at the front, all the way up to car ten/row twenty in the back.  All roads lead to Tokyo.  So much so that trains going north are said to be going "down" (as in "away" from Tokyo) whereas trains going south towards Tokyo are going "up."  It is truly a very good thing I'm not one of those people that can't find my way through a train station.

So, I look at the train car.  It's heading down, away from Tokyo (although we're going north--stay with me, people) so the seats are in which order.....the train car in the front is 10 and the back car is one, so.....it's a good thing this isn't actual math or anything.  Working through train car logic that surely can't be this hard I feel a tap on my shoulder.

"Hi!"  A man looks at me, big smile on his face.
Oh, this is not happening to me.  I have no idea who he is.
"Hi!  I say back, hoping by the time we start having a conversation I'll actually remember who he is.  "How are you?"  Keep the conversation going, girl.
"I'm okay.  Busy," he says, and "Got to keep going, though."
"What were you doing in Tokyo?"  I stall with this question.  I've still got nothing.  No clue who this man is.  He answers me but I'm not really listening because I'm concentrating hard and I think I've got it.  I'm pretty sure, in fact.  Forgetting for a moment this is Tokyo Station and very little goes right for me here, I say, "Firefighter, right?"  He looks at me with that oh-woman-you-crush-me look.  What?  I'm wrong?  This isn't that fire fighter guy I know?  He tells me who he is and where we met.  I'm so off it's embarrassing.  It's bad. 
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" He forgives me, but do I sense only reluctantly?  "I promise I'll remember next time," and with a few more comments offering goodwill towards each other we part.

And, of course I enter the train through the wrong door, fighting the those looking for seats in rows with higher numbers at the front of the car, because, girl you will some day get this right; high numbers point away from Tokyo.  Some day, I will learn these rules and cure myself of these Tokyo Station blues.  Evidently, however, today is not that day.