When passing "-curses" option to qemu, qemu displays the emulation window as default. So, how can I switch to the monitor console from the emulation window? If using graphical interface, switching between emulation window and monitor console can be achieved by "ctrl+alt+(1 or 2)". I am just not sure how to do this in the non-graphical case.
Just use Esc instead of Ctrl-Alt. So to switch to the monitor console use Esc+2. To switch back to the terminal output use Esc+1.