My local Japanese doctor was blunt: Bad knees? It's osteoarthritis, and can only get worse. Forget cycling, yoga -- all forms of exercise.
Well, thanks a lot, I thought, and rang Daniel Babu. Daniel had worked wonders for a friend returned from Vietnam, unable to keep any food down and feeling very poorly indeed. One week of healing soups and flower teas and she was back in business, feeling a thousand times better. What was good enough for her, I thought, was surely good enough for me.
Daniel generally makes home visits, as it helps toward a more exact diagnosis. But since Hayama is a long way from Mejiro, where he lives, we met instead in Lifely, a natural food store near Tokyo's Takadanobaba Station. "The owner's a friend. Also the 150-year-old family-run 'kampo' shop for buying supplies is right across the road."