Looking Back

Yesterday, as I started writing this diary entry, I went to the Hong Kong Comic Convention with two friends. Around this time last year, one of my friends couldn't find his travel permit for Hong Kong and Macau, so we had to postpone until this year. Last year, there was a terrible storm—my mom even sent me a news clip from Phoenix TV while I was still on the subway, saying the typhoon had blown over a lot of things near the convention center (if I remember correctly). But we stayed 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 a video from last year for you to check out: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1188Bz3E4X

The Present Day

Finally, today arrived. We originally planned to go on the 25th, but my pre-arranged tour to Xinjiang got moved up from the 26th to the 25th. Well, that meant we had to go on the 24th.

As usual, I arrived at Silian Metro Station at 7:30 AM and waited for my friend to come from farther away.

My other friend, who didn't come last year, lives in Huizhou, so he couldn't take the Shenzhen metro directly. We had to take the metro to Austin Station and meet him at the arrival hall.

When I got off, I found a very standard meeting point. There was no one standing under the sign, but when I stood there, he didn't see me.

I bought a fast pass for 150 HKD, which came with an aluminum ACGHK custom cup (I had extra vouchers, so I got two). My friends bought visitor tickets and couldn't enter until after 12:30 PM. We also had side quests: check out a csl store to see if they had a Nothing Phone demo unit (we'd been to three locations before with no luck), and get a replacement eSIM card (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 the lost eSIM had to be reissued—cost me 40 HKD, and they only took cash, no E-Pay).

So our first stop after meeting was Mong Kok. There's a big csl store there, near Sino Centre, where we could grab food and buy Sing Tao Daily from a newsstand.

As soon as we got off the metro, it was unbearably hot. We bought a 10 HKD Coke from the newsstand at the entrance. My friends bought other stuff, and I picked up two newspapers. Actually, I wasn't that interested in Sing Tao this time—I was more curious about another paper, the Hong Kong Economic Journal. The front page was about KIMI K3 (US criticizes Kimi K3 for unauthorized development; China refutes).

I laughed. Accusing Kimi of distilling Fable—this new paper really gave Anthropic face by not putting his so-called future model distillation on the table. Still, the US accusations against KIMI were too far-fetched; you can tell they're really desperate. But Chinese models still have a long way to go. I hope that one day, at the same time, China's flagship models can match or even surpass the comprehensive capabilities of US flagship models from the same period.

And I'm still waiting for Xiaomi MiMo to release a new model, even though this "old relic" from over three months ago is still on the leaderboard. Also worth looking forward to is the official version of the Deepseek v4 series, though rumors say it's still a bit pricey. (For hobbyists like us in third- and fourth-tier cities, we're more excited about cost-effective models.)

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

I was getting my card replaced. 👆

The only thing missing was the Nothing Phone I was looking for.

In short, we didn't find it anywhere else either, including at the csl booth at the convention.

A quick walk around the streets:

We went to Sino Centre. Even though it was 11 AM, many shops weren't open yet, so we went back in the afternoon. Someone had hung a thief outside a shop, and Asuka next to it looked angry: 👇

There was also an Animate that you could see but couldn't find:

Finally, we ate at Ajisen Ramen. To save money and eat more variety, I ordered a cute kids' meal:

After lunch, we headed to ACGHK. This was my first time entering on DAY1. They said the queue was massive, but we seemed to hit a less crowded time—it only took half an hour to get in.

----- 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 PM last night and had to catch a 9 AM flight today, so I had to wake up at 5 AM. I quickly packed and went to bed around midnight. Today, I spent the whole day on a plane—very tiring. In the afternoon, I visited the Zhangyu Winery, which was magnificent. I experienced the beauty of Xinjiang, where the sun doesn't set until nearly 10 PM. Here are some pictures. As for the rest of the ACGHK2026 diary, I plan to finish it tomorrow while on the bus.