u/Agitated-Zebra4334

I'm planning a trip for my wife back to the Philippines via Seoul. Apparently, Filipinos, who would normally need a visa to enter Korea, may transit through Korea and stay for up to 30 days if, among other things, they hold a visa for a Schengen country.

My wife lives and works in Europe, in one of the countries covered by the scheme.

Apparently, however, the visa is required to be in the form of a sticker in the passport. If you have a residence permit in Europe, you are normally issued a residence card instead. It therefore does not seem to make sense that the authorities state that residents are covered by the scheme while at the same time requiring a visa sticker in the passport.

In practice, this would mean that someone travelling to Europe on a tourist visa (with a visa sticker in their passport) could enter Korea under the 30-day transit visa exemption, whereas someone who actually has a residence permit and permanently lives in Europe could not.

That seems rather strange. Can this really be correct?

Link to the scheme: [https://www.mofa.go.kr/us-losangeles-en/brd/m\\\_26379/view.do?seq=5&page=1\](https://www.mofa.go.kr/us-losangeles-en/brd/m\_26379/view.do?seq=5&page=1)

I'm planning a trip for my wife back to the Philippines via Seoul. Apparently, Filipinos, who would normally need a visa to enter Korea, may transit through Korea and stay for up to 30 days if, among other things, they hold a visa for a Schengen country.

My wife lives and works in Europe, in one of the countries covered by the scheme.

Apparently, however, the visa is required to be in the form of a sticker in the passport. If you have a residence permit in Europe, you are normally issued a residence card instead. It therefore does not seem to make sense that the authorities state that residents are covered by the scheme while at the same time requiring a visa sticker in the passport.

In practice, this would mean that someone travelling to Europe on a tourist visa (with a visa sticker in their passport) could enter Korea under the 30-day transit visa exemption, whereas someone who actually has a residence permit and permanently lives in Europe could not.

That seems rather strange. Can this really be correct?

Link to the scheme: https://www.mofa.go.kr/us-losangeles-en/brd/m_26379/view.do?seq=5&page=1

I'm planning a trip for my wife back to the Philippines via Seoul. Apparently, Filipinos, who would normally need a visa to enter Korea, may transit through Korea and stay for up to 30 days if, among other things, they hold a visa for a Schengen country.

My wife lives and works in Europe, in one of the countries covered by the scheme.

Apparently, however, the visa is required to be in the form of a sticker in the passport. If you have a residence permit in Europe, you are normally issued a residence card instead. It therefore does not seem to make sense that the authorities state that residents are covered by the scheme while at the same time requiring a visa sticker in the passport.

In practice, this would mean that someone travelling to Europe on a tourist visa (with a visa sticker in their passport) could enter Korea under the 30-day transit visa exemption, whereas someone who actually has a residence permit and permanently lives in Europe could not.

That seems rather strange. Can this really be correct?

Link to the scheme: https://www.mofa.go.kr/us-losangeles-en/brd/m_26379/view.do?seq=5&page=1

Just wanted to share an interesting issue I ran into in case it helps someone else.

I was trying to download the macOS Tahoe 26.6 update (about 6.6 GB).

My setup was:

• iPhone 14 Pro connected via USB tethering to a GL.iNet Slate 7 Pro
• MacBook connected to the Slate 7 Pro over Wi-Fi

The internet connection itself seemed perfectly healthy:

• Speedtest consistently showed around 130 Mbps.
• Browsing, ChatGPT, websites, etc. all worked normally.

However, the macOS update was painfully slow. It would download for a while, then stop for several minutes before continuing again. For example:

141 MB → pause
233 MB → pause
431 MB → pause
741 MB → pause
1.09 GB → long pause

It looked like it was hanging, although it occasionally resumed.

To isolate the problem, I disconnected from the Slate 7 Pro and connected the Mac directly to the iPhone's personal hotspot over Wi-Fi.

The exact same download immediately sped up and completed quickly.

So the issue doesn't appear to be:

• the cellular connection,
• Apple's servers,
• or the Mac itself.

It seems to be something specific to USB tethering through the GL.iNet Slate 7 Pro, even though normal internet usage and Speedtest worked perfectly.

Has anyone else experienced this with the Slate 7 Pro (or other GL.iNet routers)? I'm curious whether it's related to USB tethering, NAT, IPv6, MTU, or something else in the firmware.