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• Feed: Amanda's Korean Cafe Corner
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My Korean friend Summer originally is from an area close to Seoul, but moved south to the Korean countryside for work. She's been living in the countryside for awhile but often tells me how much she misses being close to Seoul, so I wanted to chat with her about what the pros and cons are of the countryside.

For a traveler, I wanted to know which she thought was better - visiting Seoul, or visiting the countryside.

And also as a Korean person, I wanted to know which one a person might prefer, and why.

What are your opinions? Have you ever lived in the countryside before? What did you like or dislike?

A friend asked about cycling from Seoul to Busan and although I haven’t done that, I’ve been to the starting point. The Bukhangang (northern Han River) cycling track is an incredibly scenic getaway east of the congested Gangnam/Jamsil area. It’s the first leg of the 700km Seoul-Busan route, but it’s also a perfectly good destination in itself, suitable for those of us who can only peddle for an hour before our butt hurts too much.

This is a semi-humorous Korean idiom that I remember learning before I could actually hold a full conversation. When the Korean who taught it to me explained it, I still didn't really know what it meant. This is because I didn't know the word 기역 yet - the word for the Korean letter "ㄱ." I hope that after explaining it to me, the Korean wasn't thinking I was someone who it should be used to... but who knows.

I know 2 weeks ago we also had a new Korean Phrases episode, but this will be the last one for awhile. Starting next week, I'll be uploading some new videos I filmed in Korea that I'm excited to share with you. In the meantime, here's another useful idiom. Check out the video here~!

This is a local re-post of a Singapore response piece I wrote for the Lowy Institute a few days ago.

I’ll be honest and say that I still don’t really know what Trump achieved in Singapore. He’s running around the US and Fox claiming that he solved North Korea and and all that. But that’s not true. Just go read the Sentosa Declaration. It’s only 400 words and mostly aspirational. That’s not bad, but hardly worth presidential involvement.

Can you get a job with an online TEFL course? Yes, somewhere you can, but it does depend on the school and country. Schools and countries can have different requirements or preferences.

It is also possible to get a job without any TEFL course (online or onsite).

Some schools will also reject online certificates. This can be more common in Europe, the middle east or other schools around the world.

How about in Asia? 

In my experience teaching in East Asia I'd say that most schools there don't care and will accept online courses.

The bottom line is that some schools: