My magical moment 奇妙的感覺

This morning I experienced a magical moment. Let me start by when I stepped outside my hotel room.
很多朋友經常都說秋天要去日本看紅楓葉。這個我一直也沒太大興趣。不是說我不愛，只是沒這個熱情。直到這次日本之旅，終於明白為甚麼這麼多人為楓葉著迷。

TOP NOTCH ACCOMMODATION

To be specific, I’m not staying at a normal hotel right now. The accommodation is a collection of centuries old small Japanese houses in a secluded area. This is the outside of my house, and this is the unedited version of the photo (all the rest have been touched up).
日本之旅最後一站的住宿是全程最豪華，最頂級的。房子有幾百年老，現在已到家族第五代。這裡在幾十年前甚至曾經招待過日皇!之後一定跟大家分享。

When I woke up this morning I decided to go outside to take some photos as there are many maple trees around where I was staying. This is an amazing place located at a serene setting , so beautiful that even the previous Japanese Emperor dined here decades ago. Needless to say the accommodation, service and food is top notch, with the price tag to match, but its worth it. That’s going to be another post though.

RED MAPLE LEAVES

A lot of my friends always rave about the maple leaves in autumn in Japan and how beautiful they are. Some of them even try to time their visit to Japan to see the red maple leaves. To be honest, I’ve never been too obsessed with it, but having seen the maple leaves turn from green to golden-yellow, to orange and finally red as we’ve driven around Japan in the last couple of weeks, I am beginning to understand their obsession.  In the meanwhile, here’s a selection of the photos I took this morning.
這裡園林美景，紅葉四處，早上起來馬上到外把這景觀紀錄下來。正當我跪在地上拍紅葉中一點綠葉時，突然感到有東西在耳旁輕輕飄過，然後降落我衣領上。這感覺非常奇妙，非常溫馨，好像有一位很熟悉的朋友依偎在我的身邊。這感覺是非筆墨所能形容。 我跪在地上不敢動，從眼角中斜視見到衣領上有一塊小小的楓葉，很美噢！

MY MAGICAL MOMENT

Let’s go back to my magical moment. It happened as I was kneeling down on the ground to take a photo of this green plant amongst the red maple leaves.

As I was trying to keep very still to zoom into the plant, suddenly I felt something float gently down besides me. I could actually feel it pass by my left ear, not quite brushing it but near enough.  Then it landed gently on me. It’s difficult to explain the feeling of this magical moment as words have never been my forte.  The feeling was very surreal, almost as if someone very gentle had come very close to me. I glanced from the corner of my left eye, and saw a small maple leave lodged on the edge of my collar.

I didn’t dare move, not because I was scared, but because the leave was barely touching me. If I moved, it might immediately fall off. I tried to get my mobile phone to capture this magical moment but I was in a bit of a compromising position. Luckily my brother in law walked pass at this moment and helped me out.

This may sound quite trivial to people.  I guess that’s the difference between experiencing and reading, especially reading from someone who can’t articulate feelings and emotions very well.  I wish I could express my magical moment better.