Like I said in the previous post, some serious jetlagged induced insomnia here (posting this at 3:00 AM), but in anticipation of my move to Seoul next month, a return to my home of eight years, I am posting a Flickr slideshow which captures a bit of what I love about the place. Some of the alleys are inviting, some aren’t, all capture the imagination a bit. Alleys in Seoul are best meandered late at night holding the hand of your loved one, a special moment before heading home but after the first drink of the evening where anything seems possible, just around the corner.
You can wander the glitzy wide-laned avenues (made possible by the Korean War) and admire the fantastic public transportation (best I have ever seen). You can sample Asian cuisine at its finest, drink the finest wines, marvel in the setting sun atop Namsam, but, like anywhere else, the city is best consumed on street level, deep in the networks of alleys that double as home, markets, closets, parking garages, playgrounds. I will be there wandering quite a bit.
My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.
