7-25 Thursday Gyeong- Buddist temple

I can't believe the trip is coming towards the end. Today in Gyeong-gu we saw a Buddhist temple known as the Bulguksa temple. Here we saw monks and lots and lots of stairs. On the way out we saw piles of stones.
Often in these Buddhist temples you see a symbol that looks like a German Nazi symbol but it isn't in Korea it is known as a manja and is in the opposite direction of the swastika. It is a symbol used by Buddists. It's literal translation is " the letter man" .
The tour guide described it by saying The first use of the Manja dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization that existed over 5,000 years ago. In Sanskirt, the Manja is called Srivatsalksana. And while there are four ways to express this Sanskrit word, the most common is “Srivatsa”, which literally means the shape of sea clouds where hair is curled, overlapped and intermingled. I know, it sounds a bit strange, but in context, it makes a lot more sense. Srivatsa, or Gilsanghwiseon (길상희선) or Gilsanghaewun (길상해운) in Korean, refers to one of the “Samsipisang” (삼십이상), which is just one of the thirty-two marks of excellence that existed on Seokgamoni-bul’s (The Historical Buddha) body. From his head to his toes, the Buddha was covered in these marks. It is a symbol meaning good fortune.
 Then we ate lunch which was buffet style and then we drove back to Seoul. We ate buffet style dinner too!

Now we are back in Seoul... To celebrate being back in Seoul some of us went out to norae bong and a bar called the Ho Bar. This day some of us also met some of Yujin's friends at a beer pong place... Stayed out late...