Looking Back

When I started writing this diary entry yesterday, I had just gone to the Hong Kong anime convention with two friends. Around this time last year, one of my friends couldn't make it because he'd lost his Exit-Entry Permit for Hong Kong and Macau, so we had to postpone to this year. Last year it was storming so hard that while I was still on the subway, my mom sent me a news clip of Phoenix TV showing the typhoon toppling all sorts of things near the convention center (if I remember correctly). But we ended up walking indoors the whole way and didn't get rained on in the morning... I won't rehash last year's story in detail—here's last year's video if you want to check it out. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1188Bz3E4X

Fast Forward to Now

Finally, today arrived. We'd originally planned to go on the 25th, but my Xinjiang tour group, which I'd booked for the 26th, got moved up to the 25th. Well, that meant we had to go on the 24th. As usual, I got to Siliang Metro Station at 7:30 AM and waited for my friend to come from further out. My other friend, the one who couldn't make it last year, lives in Huizhou, so he can't just take the Shenzhen Metro. We had to take the train to Austin Station and meet him at the arrival hall.

After getting off, I found a very standard meeting point—there wasn't a single person under the sign. But even standing right there, he still didn't see me.

I bought a 150 HKD fast pass for myself, which came with a free aluminum ACGHK custom cup (I actually had extra vouchers, so I grabbed two). They bought tourist tickets, which meant they couldn't get in until after 12:30. We also had some side quests: check out the csl store to see if they had a Nothing Phone display unit (we'd already hit three locations last time with no luck), and get my eSIM reissued (I lost my Pixel 7 Pro when I went home for National Day last year and immediately switched to the newly released Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, but I had to get the lost eSIM replaced, which cost me 40 HKD and could only be paid in cash, not E-Pay).

So our first stop after meeting up was Mong Kok. There's a big csl store there, close to Sino Centre, and we could grab some food and buy Sing Tao Daily from a newsstand. The moment we got off the subway, we were hit by the heat. We grabbed a 10 HKD Coke from the newsstand at the entrance, they bought some other stuff, and I picked up two newspapers. Actually, I wasn't that interested in Sing Tao this time—I was more curious about the Hong Kong Economic Journal. Today's front page was all about KIMI K3 (US accuses Kimi K3 of improper development, China refutes).

Honestly, the accusation that Kimi distilled Fable is laughable. It feels like the paper gave Anthropic a lot of face by not putting his so-called "future model distillation" front and center. Even so, the US's accusations against KIMI are just grasping at straws—you can tell they're really desperate. But Chinese models still have a long way to go in the high-end race. I hope that one day, at the same point in time, China's flagship models can match or even surpass the comprehensive capabilities of American flagship models of the same era. I'm still waiting for Xiaomi's MiMo to release a new model, even though this "old-timer" from over 3 months ago is still on the leaderboard. Also worth looking forward to is the official release of the Deepseek v4 series, though word has it it's a bit pricey. (Amateurs like us from third- and fourth-tier cities are still more excited about budget-friendly models.)

After buying water and two newspapers, we headed to csl.

I'm getting my card reissued. 👆

The display units had the latest Sony Xperia and the Galaxy foldable

The only thing missing was the Nothing I was looking for. Long story short, we didn't find it anywhere else either, including the csl booth at the convention.

A quick stroll through the streets:

A KFCatch disguised as a KFC, it's a claw machine shop

We went to Sino Centre, but even though it was 11 AM, a lot of shops weren't open yet, so we came back in the afternoon. Someone had hung a shoplifter outside their store, and the Asuka behind them looked pretty pissed too: 👇

There was also an Animate you could see but never find:

Finally, we ate at Ajisen Ramen. To save money and get more variety, I ordered an adorable kids' meal:

After lunch, it was off to ACGHK. This was my first time entering on DAY1. They said the lines were insane, but we seemed to have hit a less crowded time—it wasn't too bad, and we got in within half an hour.

----- To Be Continued -----

By the time you read this, I've already spent an afternoon in Shihezi, Xinjiang, and I'm catching up on yesterday's diary. I got home at 10:30 last night, had to catch a 9 AM flight today, so I had to wake up at 5. I quickly packed and was in bed by midnight. Today was a full day of flying, pretty exhausting. In the afternoon, I visited the Changyu winery—it was quite grand—and I got to experience the beauty of Xinjiang where the sun doesn't set until almost 10 PM. Here are some photos. As for the rest of the ACGHK2026 diary, I plan to finish it tomorrow while I'm on the bus.