Organic Cafe Aurora in Kurama, Kyoto

Today we went looking for frogs in a rice paddy near our home to amuse Gregory, but all he can think about is trains, so we ended up on the train going to the terminal station in the mountain village Kurama, which is as charming as a mountain village can be, but retains the right to terrify city slickers with instantly changeable weather, so that a sunny day can become a raging thunderstorm IN MINUTES! It also has interesting festivals, such as the fire festival in October and this month's Bamboo-Cutting festival.

Today there was no raging thunderstorm, so instead of fleeing in terror we wandered into a cafe in a traditional "minka" farmhouse as an aromatherapy class was going on in the front room. I realized this was the organic cafe/aromatherapy/baby massage consortium that Rick had told me about. (Could there be more than one in a hamlet this small?) We had refreshing herbal tea, well water and mountain air before getting on the train back home, and after dropping Rick's name we left with a bag of organic potatoes and onions that, in turn, were incorporated in Yoshiko's dinner tonight. Worked out pretty well for a little poking around a rice paddy.