The plan was to take the 11:30 ferry from Shekou to Hong Kong which would put us in the city around 12:30, more than enough time to get settled into the hotel before meeting friends for a three o’clock photo walk. Already hot and humid when we left Nanshan and the forecast was more of the same over the weekend. We arrived at the ferry terminal with time to spare, bought our tickets and had to wait for a while before heading upstairs to clear immigration. Ah, immigration… remember when I wrote this in the last post?

     我們的計劃是，在蛇口乘坐11:30發(fā)出的渡輪去香港，大概12:30就能到那兒?？偟膩碚f，我們在趕去參加下午三點朋友們舉辦的街拍活動之前，有足夠的時間入住酒店。離開南山的時候，天氣炎熱而潮濕，而根據(jù)天氣預(yù)報的消息，這種狀況將持續(xù)到這個周末。當(dāng)我們趕到渡口的時候，時間還早，于是買了票，排隊等著去上樓入境檢查。 啊，入境…記得前面我寫過這個吧。

Plus, Hong Kong is less China than Shanghai and I wanted to at least feel like I was leaving the country. To get to Hong Kong you have to at least go through immigration!

另外，香港比上海更加西化，而我正想要體驗異國風(fēng)情。去香港你至少可以體驗過境的感覺。

 

Yeah, well that sentiment was just about to bite me in the rear.

是的，那種情緒在背后緊咬著我不放。

The line wasn’t very long but the air conditioning was faltering. Clearing customs to go to Hong Kong should be a fairly simple thing for me. I have a residence permit that allows me to leave and re-enter China and aside from what seemed to me to be an inordinate amount of time spent checking and re-checking my passport, said residence permit and the computer screen, I was cleared on through to Hong Kong.

     排隊等待的隊伍不是很長，但是空調(diào)卻非常不給力。去香港，通過出入境的檢查，對我來說非常簡單。我有一張居留許可證，能讓我自由出入中國，能讓我省下不少因為繁瑣的檢查而浪費的時間，出示居留許可證然后在電腦屏幕確認(rèn)信息，我輕松地踏上了香港的土地。

As I looked around for Lily I found she was still at the window with the customs agent, pained and confused look on her face. I’ve seen that look before, not a good sign. I walked around to the station where she was trying to get through and it was explained that Lily’s travel permit to enter Hong Kong was only valid if she was traveling with a group! No one had told Lily about that small detail prior to THAT MOMENT. It meant she had to go back downstairs, find a group (and pay a tidy sum) with which she would be allowed to travel and then hopefully make the next ferry. There was no guarantee she was going to be allowed to leave on that one either.

     我四下尋找Lily，發(fā)現(xiàn)她還卡在海關(guān)那，臉上寫滿了痛苦和無奈。這個景象我之前見到過，不是一個好跡象。我向Lily那邊走去并詢問情況，得到的回復(fù)是，Lily去香港的旅行許可證只有在跟團(tuán)的時候才有效。之前，沒有人跟Lily說過這個情況。這意味著她必須下樓，找一個能把她加進(jìn)去的旅行團(tuán)（花上一大筆錢），然后等下一趟渡船。并且，這個方法不一定能保證她通過海關(guān)。
 

What to do? I had already cleared customs, which meant that if I was going to wait for her, I would have to go to the other side of the building and re-enter China. Lily insisted I go on the first ferry without her and simply wait for her at the terminal in Hong Kong. The ferry was about to leave so after a bit of teeth gnashing I went on alone. While still near land I called Lily to get an update. She assured me that she had been assured she would have no problem getting out on the next ferry (one o’clcok) which meant I would be waiting for her for an hour and a half. Normally that would be so bad… normally. Remember when I wrote this in the last post?

     該怎么辦呢？我已經(jīng)通過海關(guān)了，如果我要繼續(xù)等她，那我得去另一棟樓，重新回中國大陸。Lily堅持要我一個人先走，在香港的碼頭等她。這時候船就要開了，我猶豫了一會兒，只好咬著牙獨自上了船。沒開多遠(yuǎn)，我打電話給Lily囑咐她更新一下許可證。她告訴我她已經(jīng)得到明確回復(fù)，這回通關(guān)沒問題了，她將乘中午1點的渡船。我大概要等她一個半小時?？偟膩碚f，糟透了···通常是這樣。記得我上篇寫過的嗎？

We packed very conservatively, jamming only what we would absolutely need into one small bag. In addition I was in charge of all the camera equipment and Lily was to take care of all the finances.

 

     我們打算輕裝簡行，只把旅途中要用的東西裝在一個小包里面。另外，我負(fù)責(zé)保管所有的攝影器材，而Lily負(fù)責(zé)保管財物。
 

Allow me to go through that step by step for you. We had packed one small bag. Lily had the bag. I had my passport, two cameras, five lenses, a tripod, batteries, memory cards, the clothes on my back, and exactly ￥23. Lily had all our cash and credit cards. I had just landed in one of the world’s most expensive cities with about $3.30 US in my pocket.

    容我慢慢解釋。我們?nèi)ハ愀蹠r只帶著一個小包。小包在Lily那兒。我?guī)е业淖o(hù)照，兩部相機(jī)，五個鏡頭，一副攝影用的三腳架，數(shù)枚電池，儲蓄卡，背包里的換洗衣物，以及23塊人民幣。Lily拿著我們所有的現(xiàn)金和信用卡。我就揣著3.3美元踏進(jìn)了世界上消費水平最高的城市之一。
 

Oh, and Lily had the Hong Kong SIM card for my phone too. I couldn’t even buy a sandwich! I was praying she was on her way, otherwise I was going to have to call Arnd or James or Steve and ask them to loan me some money! Not good, I was imagining the conversation, “Hey buddy! Listen I know we’ve never actually met in person but I was wondering if you could see your way to loaning me a few thousand dollars? Really I’m good for it, I’d say $10,000 HKD ought to do it for the weekend.” Right. I couldn’t actually have called anyone anyway! Thankfully Lily showed up about 2 o’clock and we somehow managed to meet up with everyone just a little past three. Here is a bit of the gang standing in front of the infamous Chungking Mansions.
 

     噢，我在香港用的手機(jī)卡也在Lily那里。我現(xiàn)在甚至買不起一份三明治！當(dāng)時我在不停祈禱，希望她能順利過來，否則，我只能打電話給Arnd 或者James和Steve，找他們借點錢了！太衰了，我在想該怎么開口。“嘿，老兄！ 聽我說，我知道我們從沒真正見過面，但是你能否看情況借幾千美元給我？真的，我真的很需要錢，我想說10000港幣應(yīng)該足夠我熬過這個周末了?！焙冒桑@太難了。我實在沒法開口給任何人打電話！謝天謝地，下午2點，Lily終于來了，我們也在三點過幾分的時候，如約趕到了會面地點。圖為，部分參與街拍的同仁站在臭名昭著的重慶大廈前。
 

Left to right, that’s Louise, Brian (looking back over his shoulder), Ok Chan, James, Arnd and Lily. Lincoln was there as well and we later met up with another Arnd, in town from Shanghai. The local contingent took us around for an afternoon of street shooting and camera shops. Miraculously, I somehow made it out of Hong Kong without buying one piece of camera equipment. I was white knuckling it for sure but didn’t buy so much as a memory card! Here are a few shots from day one in Hong Kong…

     從左至右邊，分別是Louise，Brian（往右肩望去的那個人），Ok Chan, James, Arnd 和Lily。Lincoln也在，隨后不久，來自上海的Arndy也趕上了大部隊。本地地主帶著我們閑逛，整個下午，我們都在街拍和逛相機(jī)商店。這次來香港，我奇跡般的沒有買任何攝影器材。我當(dāng)然是很想買，但是無奈囊中羞澀。這些是來香港第一天拍的一些照片。
 

As surprising as it may be to some of you, my boyish charm with the camera doesn’t always work. These gals clearly wanted nothing to do with me. I think it probably made a more interesting photograph.
 

     你們可能也會感到驚訝，我拿著相機(jī)，孩子般人畜無害的形象并不總是奏效。這些女士完全不想和我有半點交流。我想這副圖景反而更加有意思。

 

After a couple of hours in the heat and humidity Lincoln led us to a Mexican restaurant/bar and we cooled down with some cold drinks and good conversation. The place featured this kitsch tiki island-like decor with a lot of primary colors. Second Mexican restaurant in two days, I sense a theme developing…

     在炎熱和悶濕的幾小時街拍之后，Lincoln帶著我們來到一家墨西哥餐廳，享受冷飲和愉快的交流的過程中，我們感覺涼爽了許多。這家餐廳運用了大量的紅，黃，藍(lán)三原色，試圖營造一種提基島的風(fēng)格，但是裝飾品位非常媚俗。不到兩天的時間里，去了兩家墨西哥餐廳，我感覺一個主題正在醞釀中…

 

A few of the guys left us at this point to go have dinner with their families. The rest of us wandered toward the harbour. On the way I met this friendly fella’ from India. He was more than happy to let me take his photograph and I WISH I had actually taken the time to pull out the flash to use off camera for a more dynamic shot. When walking with other people I’m always sensitive to taking too much time in one spot, still, if I had it to do over again I would have pulled out the flash.

     一些朋友在這個點和我們道別，回去和家人吃晚飯。而我們剩下的人則一邊散步一邊朝維多利亞港走去。在路上，我們遇到了這位來自印度的非常友善的老兄。他非常樂意讓我拍照，我真的后悔沒有花時間在相機(jī)上裝上閃光燈，如果有閃光燈我就能多拍些生動的照片了。因為當(dāng)和別人一起街拍的時候，我不好意思在某一個地點滯留太久（譯者：意思是裝閃光燈要花費一定的時間，作者怕讓同行的人久等）。但是如果時間能再來一遍的話，我一定會裝閃光燈的。
 

The Hong Kong light show was set for eight o’clock and the viewing area at Victoria Harbour was packed. I managed to change lens and get the tripod set up in the back when I noticed another photographer was breaking down his tripod in the front row. I scrambled up and over a few hundred people and somehow managed to take his spot at just about 7:50. The guy next to me said he had been set up there since 6:20. This cityscape is one of the most photographed spots in the world. The size restraints here don’t really do it justice.
 

    香港的燈光秀在晚上八點開始，而維多利亞灣的觀賞地點早就被圍得水泄不通。當(dāng)我注意到前排的一位攝影師三腳架出現(xiàn)問題時，我及時地?fù)Q上了鏡頭，架好三腳架，趕緊擠上前去。擠過數(shù)百人，終于在7:50的時候取代了那位攝影師的位子。我旁邊的老兄說，他下午6:20就在這里搭好設(shè)備了。此處的城市景觀是全世界上鏡率最高的地點之一。下面這張刻意壓縮了的照片不能完全體現(xiàn)維多利亞灣的華麗與震撼。
 

We still wanted to get the requisite shot from The Peak but by the time we got to the other side of the ferry we were both hungry and I hadn’t had a (real) steak in more than three years. After saying goodbye to the rest of the gang we headed over to Ruth Chris Steakhouse and left, $1,500 HKD later. Worth every penny. The Peak will have to wait.

     我們還想去太平山頂拍幾張重要的照片，但是當(dāng)我們到達(dá)渡口的另外一側(cè)時，我們倆都餓極了，并且我已經(jīng)有三年多沒有正經(jīng)吃過牛排了。于是，和剩下的伙伴道別后，我們直奔Ruth Chris Steakhouse 牛排店，在那里消費了1500港幣，飽餐了一頓。每一分錢都花得值啊。看來，去太平山拍照的計劃只能推遲了。

Thanks to everyone who’s already registered for the September giveaways. Remember, we are giving away prizes throughout the month to celebrate the launch of the new website, including an Apple iPad, a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 MACRO lens, autographed limited edition prints and copies of Saving Faces – A Portrait Collection. All you have to do to get registered is subscribe to the feed and leave a comment somewhere on the site. I hope you’ll please spread the word.

    感謝每一位前來登記領(lǐng)取九月份獎勵的朋友。記住，我們將通過在整個九月分發(fā)獎品來慶祝新網(wǎng)站的成立，獎品包括一個蘋果iPad，一個佳能EF 100mm f/2.8 MACRO 鏡頭，限量版親筆簽名照，以及《Saving Faces》：一部人像攝影集。你們只需要訂閱我的內(nèi)容，然后在本站留言。我希望你們能夠幫我多多宣傳這個活動。

I have my first morning class of the new term tomorrow. More joy.

明天早上我有教學(xué)任務(wù)，這將是我本學(xué)期的第一堂課，祝大家開心。