In Search of the Hamasaki Ayumi Bus...

So as you guys may know, in June, right before I went to Tokyo to see the end of Hamasaki Ayumi's Japan tour ( blog, photos), they FINALLY announced the show dates for the overseas stops in her '10th Anniversary 2008 Asia Tour'.   今週末は浜崎あゆみちゃんは香港のコンサットをしている。このブログ中にあゆの香港の色々広告の写真。7月時、切符売るの前、広告がたくさん所が見える：地下鉄に、電車亭、新聞、マガジン、等等。。。　一番大がホンハム水道の出口のバス停。とても長い！（８０－９０ｍ？）一番見つき難かったはバスの広告。３－４週ぐらい頑張りましたから、最後見て、写真を撮った。下の写真を見て下さい！有難う！

Like last year, she's coming to HK, Taipei and Shanghai.  This time they expanded to two each shows in HK and Taipei.  I knew it was just a matter of time before they started promoting it and put the tickets on sale.  Last year's HK show, held at the Coliseum sold out in like 1 or 2 hours. (the good seats supposedly all disappeared in about 30 minutes). So I knew I had to be vigilant.

As soon as I got back from Tokyo I started spotting the advertisements in the MTR....

Of course you know I stopped to take a picture!

So as you can see from the advertisements, the tickets actually went on sale on July 10th... and sold out quite quickly (despite HKticketing.com crashing about 20 times, I think the tickets for two shows sold out in a few hours no problem. (held this year at AsiaWorld Expo, which can fit like 12,000!)

I did get one half-way decent seat online though:

score!

Anyway, back to the advertisements!  I wasn't surprised they put some advertisements up in the MTR, most shows advertise there.  But in fact the week before the tickets went on sale I started spotting advertisements in news papers and magazines too.

Back cover of the HK-edition of a Japanese tourism magazine.  Hmm,  is it overkill?

Of course some ads at Asia World too - spotted after Akon's concert.  ;-)

But they didn't stop there, they also went all out and got a super-long advertisement at the toll booth bus stop at the Hung Hom Cross-Harbor Tunnel.  This thing is like 50-70m long maybe?!?

It was quite hard to take a good picture, since this place is usually quite crowded with cars and buses, but since I come by here often, I had many chances!

Here you can see how huge it is... like 4-5 bus lengths!

Believe it or not, this thing was there for a full month, til August 1st (when it sadly was replaced)... hmm, i still am not sure why they spent so much on publicity!

But thats not all!  Here's another smaller billboard at a tram stop!

doh, I couldn't get this idiot to get out of the way!

BUT it doesn't stop there! While I was riding in a taxi about halfway through the month, I ALSO spotted the advertisement on the side of a bus!  wow, that reallyis going all out...   

unfortunately I wasn't able to take a picture of that bus... but I knew I hadto get one for my blog... so for the next two weeks, every time I was walking outside I kept my camera handy to snap a picture of a Hamasaki Bus if one happened to appear.  I even made sure to walk down the correct side of the street on one way streets so I could spot them on the driver's side.

After two weeks of no luck I was about ready to give up...  I figured the contract for the advertisements must have ended and they've probably already been replaced...  My 'white whale' had gotten away...

But then on the 2nd of August I finally cornered my prey! (at Hung Hom Ferry Bus Terminus).

Thar she blows!

Mission accomplished... 

So you'll notice that the date on the advertisements is Sept 20th.  That's today!   But I'm actually going to tomorrow night's show.   Finally!  I get to see Hamasaki-chan again. ;-)