field trip
5/8/2O25

so today me and a bunch of other people from school went on a field trip to the bangalore palace! we all hopped on a bus at about 8:4O am that was gonna take us there. it took like 1 and a half hours to get there (because it's bangalore), but luckily for us, the palace only opens for visitors at 1O. on the way there, we decided to have some fun. we started singing random songs at the top of our voices. but then two girls in the back sang "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" and that kinda ruined the vibe.

when we got to the palace, we were optimistic, but i didn't really know what to expect, because quite a few of my friends, and even my class teacher, advised me against going on this trip.

"what are you gonna do over there, sai? there's literally nothing to do over there. it's a literal wedding venue, for god's sake"
-my class teacher when she found out about me going on the trip

well, she and my friends may not have been completely wrong (there were a ton of wedding venues near the palace, including one within the palace complex... "palace grounds" is full of those) but i genuinely had a good time there! 

as we entered the place, we noticed that there was a japanese dude outside who visibly seemed to be struggling with something. then a security guard there asked me and my friends aarush and ishaan if we knew english. we said "of course" (not immediately realizing that the security guard didn't know english himself) and got to helping that japanese dude. he said "i wanna buy a ticket, can you help?" (he didn't know kannada), to which i replied "i don't think so, the school arranged our tickets." then ishaan (not knowing what to do) said "sayonara" and then walked away. well, at least the japanese bloke said "that was very good japanese." ISHAAN SAID ONE WORD. HIS ENTIRE KNOWLEDGE OF JAPANESE IS FROM THE FIRST DUOLINGO UNIT. in retrospect, i think the japanese guy was trying to be nice. but we let that slide, said our goodbyes to the man and followed ishaan into the palace.

anyway, there were a ton of cool exhibits there. if you've read stamps, you might know that i enjoy being in museums. there was some insanely cool stuff like a russian pool table from some bygone era, royal portraits, animal parts from the maharajas' hunting expeditions and a ton of awesome-looking paintings, including some by the legendary painter raja ravi varma. i really enjoyed looking at them. the only downside was that there was a lot of nudity in the paintings, but let's not talk about that... 

how about we talk about the interior of the palace instead? i think it looked really beautiful. apparently it was constructed in the tudor revival style of architecture, because the erstwhile maharaja of mysore, chamarajendra wodeyar x, wanted to replicate something the british had made, like windsor castle. now i thought this was weird, because i thought most of these indian rulers were against the british, especially in mysore state, as we had seen rulers like haider ali and tipu sultan show great resistance against the british. but i was wrong. apparently after tipu's death, no ruler of mysore really cared about the british being in control. so i guess it makes sense.

we went to the garden after we exited the palace. in my opinion, it was pretty decent. there were some beautiful flowers and a stone fountain, but i didn't see anything too special about it. however, it served as the perfect setting for me and some of my classmates to play tag. that was fun.

well, that's how our day at the bangalore palace went!
you guys can visit it if you want...
i mean i don't really recommend it, i expected better from the palace.
but one thing i learned from this trip is that wherever you go or in whatever situation you end up... if you have friends with you, you're going to end up fine.