The Kindness of Strangers

Days 1-2, Miyajima

Before we left for Kyushu, I whacked my knee on the side of our couch. It cramped. I screamed like buggery. I whacked the renegade knee back into its socket and we departed on our journey.

Miyajima was our first port of call - a divine atoll of inspiration. We battled the O-Shogatsu (New Year) crowds for Hatsumode (first shrine visit) at Itsukushima Shrine, a sprawling wooden shrine set on wooden legs which at high tide, is surrounded by water.

We fed the deer (considerably more docile than the cantankerous buggers at Nara who would sooner eat you than let you leave without giving them some sembei). We watched the sunset over the red torii, one of those top 3 Best Views in Japan. Life was grand.

Sands through the lantern

That evening, after a nap, I stood up from my futon and my knee siezed back up again. I rolled about in the foetal position. I implored the gods "Why me?????. Did I say something wrong at the shrine?" I could walk, but my leg felt like a dead weight. I felt like Jake the Peg. Without the good leg.

The next day I limped up Misen mountain. Going up was slow, but fine. Coming back down was crap. The frustrated waterworks started again. Every step felt like me knee was gonna cramp again. Not. Happy. Jan.

We were staying at Kawaguchi Ryoso, a beautiful Japanese villa behind Omotesando, about a 10 minute walk to the shrine. Our hosts offered to make me tonkatsu for dinner (rather than the usual fare of sashimi and assorted Japanese delicacies which leaves me cold) so we didn't have to drag dicky knee to dinner.

Torii at dawn

On the third morning, I woke early and pegged it to Itsukushima Shrine for sunrise. At around 7 a.m, a Bugaku performance started on the wooden platform which jutted out into the bay.

The Bugaku - a stylised traditional court dance, fairly ponderous, accompanied by monks playing Gaguku music - was OK. But with the backdrop of the sun rising over the torii, the platform highlighted by candles and a film of early morning frost coating the boards, it was magical.

Not so idyllic was the temporary swag of feisty obbatalllions in their early morning velocity, who kept trying to push people off the platform to get a closer look at the four fancy costumed men. But all up there were only about 30 viewers, most of them professional photographers, so it felt like an intimate gathering. A rarity in Japan for such a scene.

"Who the hell gets up this early anyway?"

When I returned to the ryokan, my leg still couldn't bend, so we asked Kawaguchi-san if there was a doctor nearby.

"Oh yes" she replied. "Very close! Let me ring him and have him come back from wherever he is."

"No! No!" we protested. "We don't want to trouble him! We'll just go over when he comes back."

Kawaguchi-san waved us away and returned 5 minutes later, beckoning us us to come with her. She lead us to a tatami room in the ryokan where the "seitai" (osteopath) was kneeling ceremoniously next to a single futon.

He took one look at my swollen knee, turned me over, and started massaging the back of my knee. It hurt like a fucking (fuckit, there goes my new year resolution) bastard. True to the style of Japanese doctors, he didn't tell me what he was doing, so when he bent my knee back and I felt it cramp again, I kicked back involuntarily, narrowly missing his face.

To this he patted my leg and, quite the joker, giggled in English;

"No! I am professional. Ha ha ha!"

It turns out I'd been walking around for 2 days on a dislocated knee. He was merely trying to snap the joint back. The fee for this exemplary in-house treatment? Nada. Zip. Zero. The knee didn't feel quite normal but he assured me it would be better in a few days.

So began what would come to be called the Dicky Knee Tour...

Miyajima Photo Gallery...

Tomorrow - Miyajima to Hiroshima