Kyoto Train Station; Unrequited Affections

“I missed you, Grishma.”

“I didn’t miss you! You’re unbearable!”

“I just want to hang out with you.”

“Shut up! I hate you!”

So began a familiar conversation with the Kyoto train station. In Pokemon, Nurse Joy is essentially identical, even though there are multiple manifestations of her in different cities. Train stations work the same way. I learned today that Florence and Kyoto are sisters. Or second cousins, or whatever all those Nurse Joys were.

Florence Train Station had this nasty habit of kidnapping me for hours. She loved to see my friends and me so much that she’d never be open when she claimed on signs, so we’d have to come back multiple times a day. She’s one of those need-to-be-needed types. She’d make sure that the employee servicing us would somehow botch the job, too. Just to keep us around for a few extra hours before we left for our destinations.

In the same way, Kyoto Train Station keeps me. She keeps me for hours. She makes sure that employees give me different routes, different answers. She cancels just the right trains so that I have to come trudging back to her time and again, disheartened.

But saying it with such brevity is putting it lightly. Let me take you through my day. Through our day, this train station and I.

12:00pm

I decide that local trains would be a better experience than taking the bullet train back to Tokyo. The windows are bigger, plus I like going at a slower pace so I can enjoy the scenery. We buy our tickets, and the employee points us to Platform 2.

We get on the train, it stops at Tsuruga, then comes back to Kyoto. We’re confused, but I loved seeing the small towns outside my window as we passed. Not a big deal.

2:30pm

“WE HAVE TO TRANSFER?! WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL US THIS?!”

Okay, breathe.

We get directed around the train station twice before someone circles two stations on a map. A Japanese map. We need to transfer at Maibara. I study the Japanese characters for the next thirty minutes—the first character looks like Japan’s fault lines, the second like a lantern hanging outside a shop. Maibara. Maibara. 米原.

We board the train the attendant points out, and after an hour or so, it abruptly stops at a station that isn’t Maibara. We are told to leave, that this was the end of the line. Stepping outside, I saw that this station—this mound of soil slightly more raised than the acres around it—is in a town with fewer residents than my dorm. Why is the train stopping? Where are we? We’re at Omi-Imazu? What is happening? This is so stressful! I hate everything!

I talk to an attendant. Okay, we don’t have to go all the way back to Kyoto... Just take a transfer to Omi-Shiotzu, then transfer to Maibara.

“This is so stressful!” I yell, stomping around like a child during a tantrum around the train station, trying to figure out where to go and what to do. The floor is wet from the constant drizzle, and the chill is slowly crushing me.

After waiting for forty minutes, I realize that the train which would take us to transfer to another train which would take us to Maibara stops every three hours in this town. We decide it would be faster to just take a train back to Kyoto and get on a different line.

6:50pm

“I mi—”

“Shut up.”

“—ssed you.”

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!!”

I have a Kyoto TS employee draw out what transfers I need to make—all the transfers. Maibara is the first of eight transfers. What. WHAT. He recommends sleeping in some town for the night, because trains won’t run as long as I’ll need for the journey to Tokyo… IF everything goes smoothly from now on!

“Can I just exchange these for the bullet train? I need to be in Tokyo by tonight.”

“Sorry, last bullet train already left.”

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Kyoto Train Station finally relents.

“Nozomi line, that will take you there tonight.”

“Nozomi,” I say, recognizing the Japanese characters. Looks like an “n”, a twisted “z”, and a hindi “m”. Nozomi. のぞみ

The bullet train it was. I arrived back to the Kyoto station three times today, over a span of almost nine hours. An old man tells me that no one, not even the Japanese, would take the JR Line from Kyoto to Tokyo because it takes almost 8 hours. Where were you at noon, old man?

I bid goodbye to the Kyoto Train Station, certain that I’ll be seeing some manifestation of her spirit again.