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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Wonderfull Rueda workshop

Last week Soul Club at Somajiguda hosted a great Rueda workshop conducted by Sachin and Deepthi from Spinn Academy over Wed-Fri (3 days). This turned out to be the best Latin dance teaching I have seen in Hyderabad as yet. I should clearly inform that I am more inclined for the Rueda dance compared to Salsa, so my opinion might be biased.
Among other things, I liked the focus on the Spanish names for each step, and also lot of focus on the steps which get the main dance going, i.e the ones like Adios and Damen La (Une, dros and tres).


Don't have the photos to post. Will see I can get them from others in the workshop.

PS: Rueda is a Cuban dance. Some call it Cuban Salsa.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Voderevu Trip




On first weekend of September we had a trip to Voderevu, a coastal village near Cherala. Voderevu is surely one of the lesser known beaches of AP which can be a good weekend destination for reasons of small traveling time/distance.


The trip started on a great note with B'day celebration for Mallik in the train. A great cake courtsey Ramya and Deli 9 :), the bumps ceremony cudn't be completed as Mallik had all kind of senti ready to avoid it. The usual chatting went as someone kept iterating Friday nights are not for sleeping, don't remember if we did actually take rest or not.


The train journey to Cherala is a short one, ideally it shud take around 6 hrs took around 8 for us. Reaching the place at a convinient 5:30 or so in the morning. We hired autos to make our way to the resort in Voderevu which turns out to be 6 KM away. The drive was as scenic as you can imagine. Loads of greenery all around, some small water bodies giving perfect reflection of tall coconut trees around them. The breeze was perfect.


Our (Sip and Dip) resort didn't turn out to be up to expectation for the decent price they charged 450 bucks for a double bed non AC (we went for pre reservations just to be sure). The only claim they cud make was the direct view of the ocean, everything else was pretty bad. Fortunately we cud find a better place by the evening and shifted to it for the next day. At little walking distance from the ocean there are decently priced and well maintained rooms, we stayed at one called Krishna Vamsi Sea cost guest house.

The beach was as good as we cud want, small warning for ppl with strong nose and allergy from smells, the beach had a non-ignoreable smell of fishes as fisheries happens to be the main occupation around here. But as you go into the water, the smell is totally gone, as you see and enjoy is some nice waves. We cud keep playing in there for almost 4-5 hrs on the first day and again for 2-3 hrs the next day.


Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner get you the authentic Andhra taste, it only more spicier than one you get in Hyderabad. The breakfast on the first day was awesome, we all ate heavily as both Dosas and Pooris were very tasty (Cudn't get the same one next day as we woke up quite late :( ). Lunch and Dinner weren't very good atleast for me, It was a rice only meal and since the ppl here mostly eat non-veg as in fishes Veg food was anyway non a great treat.

The Saturday evening Mallik proposed watching a telugu movie in the local theatre to get a feel of it. We watched YamaDonga. Amongst the 7 only Mallik and Ram knew Telugu comfortably well and Ram cudn't avoid taking a dose in the movie so we were left with only Mallik to tell all the other 5 whats going on :D The movie was good too. The cinema hall had some non-familiar concepts like FCFS seating arrangement. The time we came back after dinner it was already too late for the proposed bonfire, went to the sea for a night walk and with a plan to spend some time there but the crabs and smell all over made us change our mind.

Next day was full of similar activities and lot more funs and photographs at the beach. Lots of gossip in the room and it was already time to leave back to cherala and back to Hyderabad. Looking forward for the next trip :)