The most infuriating thing with Maps is that if you're looking at directions and have got the viewport where you want it and want to do something there (e.g. look at the description of a restaurant that's near the station you're changing at, or get directions to somewhere along your route), you can't. There's no way to escape from "directions mode" except hitting the back button, which resets your viewport. So you have to memorize the name of the place you're interested in, exit directions, and then hope that searching finds the place you were looking at a second ago (which, maybe in English it does, but searching for a Japanese place by name works maybe 1/3 of the time).
>>lmm+(OP)
This is weird because the behavior you describe is available on the desktop version of Maps, but not in the mobile app. I can't imagine why...