All these “city eye” can be a bit of a gimmick, from London to Sharjah to Singapore, and quite recently, Dublin too. However, fair play to the other cities, the locations are quite spot on for wonderful bird’s eye view of the cities and their environs. For Dublin though, I’m not sure if the same can be said, which is a real shame.

It’s hidden all the way down by The O2 (formerly The Point), an area not known for casual visitors but busy when there’s a (sold out) gig/show being played/ performed. Not only that, its location and size (it’s only half the height of London Eye) also means many landmarks of Dublin are not easily seen, given we don’t have many tall buildings and with most road being relatively narrow, from a distant, all the buildings easily blurred into continuous rows.

Passing by to have a look at it carves a rather dejected sight. Not all the pods were lit and the carousel was not even in operation. Granted, it’s Monday today and I was there after its closing time. However, last week, when I was around the area on a Friday evening, it was the same. And according to the website, it should still be open until 11pm. It makes me wonder – is Wheel of Dublin even in operation anymore?

There’s a new theatre in the city – the Grand Canal Theatre – situated adjacent to some office blocks but on the lovely site of Grand Canal Square.The theatre has opened for about a year now, and still I haven’t a chance to attend any event there. Unsurprising, given how often I was away last year, and I haven’t seen something that caught my eyes in particular to pay the theatre a visit.

I didn’t realise that the Grand Canal area also falls under the Dublin Docklands initiative. Silly me. I should have though. The colourful set up is one of the hallmarks around the quay area. But for tonight though, I tried to play away with just single chosen colour. Pretty interesting effect but I’m not entirely convinced that it shows off the Grand Canal Square properly as it should…

Ireland was certainly busy building during the boom time, and one of the nicest thing that came out from it is the Dublin Convention Centre, a world class conference venue that can accommodate even up to 3,000 people in a hall at a time. No surprises then SMBE Annual Conference for 2012 will be taking place here.

It has been a while since I walk by the docklands area, and they’re certainly coming along nicely. During the day, it may all seems a tad nondescript but once the sky is dark though, the colours displayed are just so lovely. I saw a few more photo ops around here, so I guess I’ll just have to come back another couple of evenings to take those shots.