The first "goal" of the day was when half of today's itinerary is assigned for cultural exposure and guess what? We got to do Bollywood dancing! I have actually been attending dance classes back home in Singapore, which really got me even more excited about today's dance lesson! An actual dance instructor, Ms. Minoti Ramachandra, arrived (albeit a little late) and started us off with warmups with some very signature Bollywood dance movements. After which, we got down (literally) for some really interesting dance choreography! At the end of this lesson, we finally got to understand what some of those intricate hand signs made in the traditional Indian dances actually mean!
After a hearty lunch, it was time for our 2nd "goal" of the day! We took a ride down to the famous Indian Institute of Science and who better to welcome us than Prof. Iyer himself of IISc! After a short presentation on the institute, the professor introduced us to a couple of his current students.
These students of his gave us a really great tour of the beautiful and green campus. The campus is nothing like the ones you find in Singapore as you will see from the photos below. Finally by the end of the tour, we made friends with some of the students and even have connected up on Facebook!
Finally, to complete the "Hat-Trick", we headed down to Commercial Street where for probably the first time, I felt really immersed into the Indian culture and street life! On the surface, Commercial Street looks a lot like another Bugis Village, but as you travel deeper into the back lanes of the area, you really start to see colourful and bright lights of small shops selling, well... almost everything! Just have a look at the photos!
And that marked the end of a tiring but yet most fulfilling day of the whole workshop yet. The whole bunch of us headed back and looked forward to the next day which would be the most exciting yet! Mysore!
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