by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations, MCI Shanghai and Las Vegas When you visit Shanghai sooner or later you think of Las Vegas. They have much in common. The pace of development is one thing. The scale of the construction projects is another. The audacity of the buildings is a third. The palpable sense of… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Destinations
Shanghai Surprises (Part 2) – how it all ended
by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations, MCI How it Ended My Shanghai sojourn started with a marvellous meal. This is how it ended. The ballroom of the Kerry Hotel looked stunning with accent lighting and clever up-lit props – huge hand painted masks that swiveled in box frames, three dimensional cartoon art in bright colours, festive lanterns,… Read more »
Shanghai Surprises (Part 1) – when people come together, magic happens!
by Padraic Gilligan, VP, MCI Group The Dangling Conversation It was an unlikely gathering. An Irishman, a Singaporean, a super elegant Indian lady and a very pretty Chinese girl. The dinner had been spectacular. Mixed appetisers – baked crab meat, table tossed Caesar salad and freshly cut micro-thin slices of top grade Parma ham –… Read more »
Moira Hearn (1949 – 2012): A Personal Tribute
by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, W.B Yeats Moira… Read more »
Site EMEA Forum, Berlin – Where to Europe?
by Padraic Gilligan Berlin, Early Morning, 7am The room is already flooded in bright light when my alarm squalls into life at 7am. I think my vintage football shirt might be appropriate in Germany’s capital, now that Arsenal FC has signed Poldolski so I wear it for my morning march. I try to capture on… Read more »
“Berlin: coolest city on the planet?” At Site EMEA Forum 2012
Site EMEA Forum 2012 The last 4 weeks or so have had me all over Berlin – Potsdamer Platz, Unter den Linden, Pariser Platz – but it hasn’t been as exhausting as may seem: Berlin was the key setting for two recent novels that I read – William Boyd’s The New Confessions and Esi Edugyan’s… Read more »
Greece – is there a better time to visit?
by Padraic Gilligan Athens The Aer Lingus flight to Athens had just over 100 on board, light for the beginning of June. We departed mid afternoon from Dublin and in just over 3.5 hours were descending into the heavily mountainous terrain that surrounds Greece’s capital city. 2 hours ahead of GMT, Athens was in the… Read more »
The Ubiquity of Kenny G (and great education at The IRF Invitational)
by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations, MCI I’m sitting at Gate B4 at San Antonio International Airport, waiting for my flight with American Airlines back to Chicago and onwards home to Dublin. I’m surrounded by the anodyne, bland and deeply annoying ubiquity of Kenny G, an entirely inappropriate and unfair symbolic conclusion to a stimulating,… Read more »
Florence – City of Art and Artisans
Matteo Renzi has been called the Barack Obama of Florence. He’s the young mayor of Florence who 3 years ago made the courageous decision to ban motorised traffic around the historic centre of the city. The net result of his decree is that you get to stand in front of the Duomo and marvel at… Read more »
24 Hours in Rome – Part 1
by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations, MCI and VP, Ovation Global DMC At break of dawn 04:55 Alarm goes off. To avoid subconscious and ill-advised use of the snooze facility it has been placed far from the bed. It’s an ugly sound. I fall out of bed and snap it off. I head for the… Read more »