Blogadda Michelin Pilot Experience - A leisured trip to WALES, UK

The story started once again with the extra holidays in the mid of June and as we had already learned to plan things, this time we made no mistakes but kept on changing the paths to reach the destination but finally a day before the trip something bad happened. A friend from the previous trip was unable to travel due to office responsibilities and it came to a point where the trip was getting cancelled altogether for everyone. He sacrificed the trip and we has to go on with all the car/hotel bookings done. At the last moments, another friend roped in to join us all in our trip and we were 4 this time to travel to Wales. 

The trip started in the middle of the night and this time we had FORD FOCUS as our vehicle. We started the journey early in the morning at around 4pm with 4 of our friends and the distance was 250 miles from London to Llandudno. It was the most awesome drive as the weather was great and we simply loved the empty roads. We took a break in between to have tea and snacks. Finally we reached the city of Llandudno and directly searched for McDonalds for the breakfast as we have the whole day planned ahead of us. We witnessed a Vintage rally on that day and got a chance to see many of the cars showcased in the old english movies.

Went on a cable car to reach the top of the mountains and stayed there for quiet some time. The view of the city was amazingly great and totally loved every part of the beach. After descending down we looked around in search of the food but was not able to find the food as it was 3:30pm. We thought for a while and went straight to Pizza Hut in a nearby city. We found out the Pizza hut using the GPS in my Nexus One before leaving for Swansea through the national parks and mountains.

The distance of 160 miles was covered in about 5 hours and we reached the place at around 9 pm. We directly checked into our hotel. We went for a dinner at the nearest and saw the city on foot for a while.

Next day was allocated to see the areas of Swansea and some of the nearby places in the beautiful Wales. We saw some beautiful beaches and some castles. It was a great journey visiting a lot of places as it started raining.

Next day we went on to see the Rhosilli Bay, which is one of top 25 beaches of the world. After spending a lot of time at the beach, we drove back to London via Cardiff (188 miles). We had a wonderful lunch at an Indian restaurant in Cardiff. Finally it was the time to say to the beautiful Wales and return to the normal office life in London.

Roads calling...as I fly like a free bird!

A chance to win a trip to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MichelinIndia/app_478302922255960" title="Michelin Pilot Experience" target="_blank">Michelin Pilot Experience</a> at <strong>BlogAdda.com</strong>

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7905347/?claim=ne8n89ckwhn">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>   

Product Review - Blogadda - ITC Ultramintz - Awesome Product

Hi Guys,

I was a chosen one for the Blogadda & ITC Ultramintz program to be among the 50 bloggers who is going to review the product before it's launched in the market.

I was so happy to receive the news last week. Incidentally, this was the first news I came across after my birthday on 22nd July. As my blog is getting some popularity and I am winning some good contests, I felt great to receive the product.

The packing was suberb and I really felt great to receive the product this way. I was wondering how the product will be sent as it's a small metallic container, but this packing simply blew my mind.

 

This is the little container which took my breathe away....lol...this gonna take care of my breathe in the coming week as I review the product. Thanks ITC for venturing into a new segment. This definitely is a cool product idea and will really be a hit in the market.

ITC Launches mint-O Ultra Mintz to bring in Sugar Free extra strong mints in Peppermint flavour. This comes in a nice small package of Rs. 50/- with approx 60 tablets to go on for several days. The small mintz is very powerful and brings in a lot of freshness even if you had strong smelling drink or food or smoke. Really loved the way this small pallets takes away my bad breathes. The package is small and easy to carry always and easy on the pocket too. They will not be spilled out of the case they are in. These are secured inside this metallic case which is great in it's looks and keeps it dry even when it's raining.

 As soon as I started carrying it, it brought me a lot of new friends when we used to take a stroll after the lunch time in my office. The taste and the non-availability of the product in the market really makes me exclusive at the moment but then people will remember and look out for the product once it's everywhere in the market. It's a great effort from ITC mint-O to bring in these amazing pellets to the market which gonna really reduce the bad breathes we face. When we are talking to people who smoke and we are in a meeting where we can't even avoid them, we can politely ask them to have this one or we can carry it ourselves to share with everyone.

I tried and tested it after having raw Onion in my afternoon meals but it really did take away the smell onion brings. Kudos to the ULTRAMINTZ. 

I tested it with having a strong cup of coffee from the Vending machine and it really saved the day for me.

I ate strong garlic chilly chutney that my mom makes at home to be consumed with our dinner meals. I tried to challenge the ultramintz and thought this gonna definitely fail the same but it came out with flying colors. Hats off to the small yet powerful and beautiful pack of ULTRAMINTZ. I will recommend this one to each and every individual who wants something to keep them fresh throughout the day.  

Overall, it's something that has been missing from the market and now when it will be in the market this product is really going to pick up fast. ITC strong delivery network will make this a successful product. I wish all the very best to ITC and ultramintz to rule the market. 

Definitely, cool things and a Calm mind will always takes on the world. 

Finally, the best part of Blogadda, is this letter personally signed by the CEO. It has of great value than the product itself as the final product can be bought from the market, but this letter can't be generated ever after.

  

Thanks once again to Nirav, Blogadda team and the sponsors ITC for choosing me and my blog to review the product. I hope our association will build further... Cheers!!!

 I am reviewing mint-o Ultramintz as a part of the Product Reviews Program at BlogAdda

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

Bloomsbury - The Good Energy

 Hi Guys,

Received this amazing self-help book by Bloomsbury Publication India for their facebook bloggers invite. 

Thanks a lot to the publishers for selecting me and sending me one of their newly published books. I hope this book will help me implement more of The Law of Attraction learned via The Secret.

Looking forward to read this one, once I am done reading the one on NaMo on the kindle app.

 

More info and more books at http://www.bloomsbury.com/bloomsbury-india/

Cheers!!!

My Best Drive Across UK

A perfect road trip always starts with a dream to see the world around you. My road trip started with a dream to drive SUV for more than 2000 kms.  

 As I was in London so we thought to travel across UK to see Scotland and Lake District. Finally the plan was laid with all of us 5 friends agreeing to the trip. We planned the hotels, routes and other things. We hired Chevrolet Captiva, an automatic car with GPS fitted. Meanwhile, I found it difficult to locate the car’s diesel tank opening button and kept us waiting at the petrol pump. 

   

Around 3 am we were hitting the road from London to Lake District (300 Miles). After looking around and taking a boat ride to the other end of the lake district, we had home cooked Aloo-Poori with Achaar. Finally having an ice cream after lunch was the best dessert as we started our next journey to reach Portree, Isle of Skye (350 Miles). 

On our way, we passed through the city of Glasgow and the biggest lake of UK, Lake Lomond. 

It was dinner time and we found out another Indian restaurant in Fort Williams when we reached there at 800 pm. It was a really scary drive after dinner in the dark which I thought existed in Ramsay brothers serials where suddenly a lady in white will come on the road. I kept pressing the accelerator hard and we soon reached the city of Mallaig around 1030pm. My first day I started driving at 3am till 1130pm in the night with 1100 km on the SUV trip meter.  

We reached Ben Navis range and took cable car to reach the top of the moutains. We roamed around the lakes and the cities to reach Inverness in the evening at 4 pm. We came to a halt to eat Domino’s pizza in a car parking. While travelling around Inverness, a police cab followed me and asked me to make a halt towards the side of the road. As there was no one on the road, I was driving in the middle and as someone from other side used to come, i took my vehicle towards the side. This made the policeman angry over me and told me with a warning to drive carefully and he will keep an eye on me. 

The next day was the time when we had to see the UK highlands. We left our B&B after having an English breakfast. After seeing the castle, we travelled to Edinburgh (231 Miles) via Aberdeen. It was time to checkout the beautiful city of Edinburgh. We saw the beautiful city before reaching our dormitory as we couldn’t get any B&B due to holiday rush.

Next day we had to see the Edinburgh Castle and Underwater Sea World before finally saying goodbye to Scotland. We started around 3pm after having lunch at McDonald’s in Edinburgh. London was around 400 miles via Newcastle. Loved the whole drive.

A chance to win a trip to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MichelinIndia/app_478302922255960" title="Michelin Pilot Experience" target="_blank">Michelin Pilot Experience</a> at <strong>BlogAdda.com</strong>

Another Perfect Road Trip to Wales, UK

Hi Guys, 

After clocking 2200kilometers in the first trip, we decided to have another trip for less miles but to cover the beautiful cities of Wales mainly - Swansea, Llandudno & many other cities on the way. 

The story started once again with the extra holidays in the mid of June and as we were already progressed ourselves in our way to plan things, this time we made no mistakes but kept on changing the paths to reach the destination but finally a day before the trip something bad happened. A friend from the previous trip was unable to travel due to office responsibilities and it came to a point where the trip was getting cancelled altogether for everyone. He sacrificed the trip and we has to go on with all the car/hotel bookings done. At the last moments, another friend roped in to join us all in our trip and we were 4 this time to travel to wales. 

The trip started just like the earlier one in the middle of the night and this time we had FORD FOCUS as our vehicle. We loved the color of the vehicle very much. We started the journey early in the morning at around 4pm with 4 of our friends and the distance was 250 miles from London to Llandudno. It was the most awesome drive as the weather was great and we simply loved the empty roads. We took a break in between to have tea and snacks. Finally we reached the city of Llandudno and directly searched for McDonalds for the breakfast as we have the whole day planned ahead of us.

We went on to see the beach at Llandudno after parking our car on the Marine Drive kind of parking near the beach. The parking was free for some hours and afterwards you need to pay for the same. We had luck on our sides as a Vintage rally was starting there on that day and we got a chance to see many of the cars showcased in the movies.

Went on a cable car to reach the top of the mountains and stayed there for quiet some time. The view of the city was amazingly great and totally loved every part of the beach. After descending down we looked around in search of the food but was not able to find the food as it was 3:30pm and Indian food was not served in 2 of the restaurants after 3 pm. We thought for a while and went straight to Pizza Hut in a nearby city. We found out the Pizza hut using the GPS in my Nexus One and it helped us fulfill our stomach before leaving for Swansea through the dense forest and mountains.

The distance of 160 miles was covered in about 5 hours and we reached the place at around 9 pm. We directly checked into our hotel. We went for a dinner at the nearest and saw the city on foot for a while. As pizza was still there in my stomach, I avoided eating dinner and went directly to sleep. 

Next day was allocated to see the areas of Swansea and some of the nearby places in the beautiful Wales. We saw some beautiful beaches and some castles. It was a great journey visiting a lot of places as it started raining.

Next day was the time when we went on to see the Rhosilli Bay which is one of top 25 beaches of the world. After spending a lot of time at the beach, we drove back to London via Cardiff (188 miles). I walked to the one of the corners in the Rhosilli Bay to found out a ship buried deep inside the sand with it's flag post visible and lots of debris all around. We had a wonderful lunch at an Indian restaurant in Cardiff. Finally it was the time to say to the beautiful Wales and return to the office in London.

Thanks a lot!

AmbiPur can certainly keep the car fresh with it's fragrances. Checkout more at facebook.com/AmbiPurIndia

 

The Journey of life continues....till the time there are beautiful roads like these!!!

Twitter Contest - Castrol Cricket #ClingOn Goodies

Hi Guys,

During the last cricketing season - ICC Champions Trophy - Castrol Cricket has organized an online contests where they distributed a lot of Pizza vouchers & ClingOn merchandise. Thanks a lot for finally making me a winner for the merchandise. I was unable to tweet anything great which could be displayed live in the match in UK for which every tweet deserved Domino's Pizza vouchers. Let's hope I will write more and great tweets in the next cricketing season. Indian Cricket team finally picked up the Champions Trophy this season.

Cheers!!!

Smelly to Smiley Air - Ambipur & Indiblogger Meet at New Delhi

Hi Guys, 

Another Indiblogger meet with unlimited seats and lots n lots of new faces in the Capital of India brought traffic to a standstill at Hyatt Regency Ballroom, Delhi. It was a meet with great lunch being served for more than 350 bloggers. That day too, I travelled by motorcycle to the hotel and parked my bike in the GAIL office paid parking as hotel has no parking for bikes. As soon as I entered I saw my friend Murtaza standing with Shwetabh, very soon Jatin joined us. 

The meet started with some of the snaps we clicked for the pre-meet competition. I was the lucky one to get one Universal remote control worth rs 990/-. It was a great thing as I always wanted to control my TV, TATA Sky and Blu-ray player with a single remote. Thanks to AmbiPur and Indiblogger team for the same. 

The event took it's own course as the hall was fully filled with no empty seats. With the same game of counting 1-9 and introductions of various people working on social issues became the heart of the day. Very soon after the head banging started and people won Sony headphones. It was lunch time after that. The lunch spread was great. I met Mr. Passey and others during the lunch and really loved talking to him and took sincere advice on the DSLR I wanted to buy.

After lunch the corporate presentation started and people were speaking and the presenter was speaking to herself and not on the mic so many of us couldn't listen and it was the most boring talk ever. 

Ambipur started distributing their air freshners to all the bloggers and people went on to pick their favourite fragrance replacing with each other and the team distributing the same. Finally they introduced a game to all the people having same type of ambipur fragrance to make a team and do some act or skit or advt. We too tried our bit but was not among the winning team. Finally it was the time to say goodbye and people won PS3, Sony Android watches, Lumia 820 for their tweets and blogs. It was a great event with lots and lots of goodies and prizes for the great folks. Also this time the tshirt was of the color White as requested by all of bloggers on the forum. 

Cheers!!!

A Perfect Road Trip in and around Scotland & UK

A perfect road trip always starts with a dream to see the world around you and it brings in much more learning than any book can ever if you can pay the price of it. My Perfect road trip started with a dream to drive SUV for more than 2000kms. I had always driven for not more than 500 – 800 kms on an extended weekend trip in my small car. Driving an SUV gives you a comfortable ride and the power the SUV has always attracted me towards it. Somehow I started for a drive in TATA Safari for a friend’s marriage in Allahabad in the evening and planned to stayed at another friend’s in laws in Mathura who was travelling with us with family. From there early morning to reach Allahabad was the idea but I had to came back as my 4 months old daughter suffered from fever and I had to take the first bus back to Gurgaon. My dream to drive/travel long distance in a SUV crashed. A new hope got initiated that this time, I will drive the SUV and will travel long distance.

Cutting long story short, I went to London for my company project and there came April long weekend having Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon. It was enough to travel across UK to see Scotland and Lake District. I asked my friends and 3 of them said yes immediately. We started planning for the trip as this was my first driving experience in UK. We thought of various options to travel to various destinations and then charting out the routes for the same. Finally the plan was laid with all of us 4 friends agreeing to the route and we started checking the costs involved. Started with renting a car online checking the best of the cars and finally settling for an automatic one, but I never knew what lies in store for me. Finally, we asked for another friend to join in as the costs were high for 4 people and having an extra member will cost the travelling cost. Me and one of my friend Abhishek was the main people to plan the hotels, routes and plan to stay at particular city for what time. So finally after doing everything right, we waited for the Thursday to end and reach out respective homes asap. I had to go early in the afternoon to pickup the car from Enterprise-a-Car from the station we booked at. We reached the location using the London Tubes and reached the car rental agency soon. The company guy asked where we wanted to go and considering out trip to the top most part of UK, gave us the Chevrolet Captiva. Wow! I was so happy to see the SUV and he continued to tell the features of the car. It was an automatic car with GPS fitted in the car itself. After paying them the price of the car for rent, we drove the car to my home. Meanwhile, I found it difficult to locate the car’s diesel tank opening button and kept us waiting at the petrol pump. Finally, the car was standing tall outside my house. Driving an automatic for the first time took me some time and extra brakes while driving home. Finally time to sleep and take some rest and packing the clothes before the start of the trip.

 

As per the planned time, I woke up at 130 am in the night and went for bath. Finally left my home at around 210 am to reach my friend’s home at 230 am. Morning freshness was still there in the environment and I totally missed the AmbiPur car fragrance on my beautiful journey. 

We all packed with all the luggage in the boot, fruits and snacks to eat was all packed up. Around 3 am we were hitting the road from London to Lake District (300 Miles). It was a journey of around 5 hours to reach one end of Lake District and we had our share of joys in the way with having breakfast at the leisure points that comes on the highways after every 50-100 miles. Finally we reached the beautiful lakes and loves every part of roaming around as the boats will open at around 1030 am. We were the very first people to reach the lake. After looking around and taking a boat ride to the other end of the lake district, my friends has a surprise for me. It was their home cooked Aloo-Poori for all of us with Achaar. I really loved the brunch we had at the spot sitting near the lake on a wooden bench. Finally having an ice cream after lunch was the best dessert as we started our next journey to reach Portree, Isle of Skye (350 Miles). 

The GPS was helping us find a way through UK. On our way, we passed through the city of Glasgow and the biggest lake of UK, Lake Lomond. We see a lot of CARAVANs with people setting up their tents near Lake Lomond. Scottish people call Lake as Loch. Enroute way, we fall in love with Scotland as shown in P.S. I love you movie and the various types of mountains that were there in our route.

It was dinner time and we found out another Indian restaurant in Fort Williams when we reached there at 800 pm. As it was our appraisal time, my increased salary letter as I had dinner and checked the same online. It made me happy and took away all the tiredness. The journey towards the Portree started soon after the dinner. The GPS was leading the way through the dark forests with hills on one side and sea/lakes/valleys on the other. It was a really drive which I thought existed in Ramsay brothers serials where suddenly a lady in white will come on the road. I kept pressing the accelerator hard and we soon reached the city of Mallaig around 1030pm. We wanted to reach Portree but reached Mallaig only to see that we havn’t unclicked the ferry option. It was a ferry that takes you across Malaig to Portree on a 30 min boat ride with car. They had already closed their ferry boat rides at 630pm. I asked my friends that it’s a one hour more ride as we need to go once again on the road to Fort Williams and one town before need to take another motorable road. We checked out a bar/motel for lodging and cancelled our hotel rooms in Portree as it was not possible to reach after we had such Ramsay experience on the road. My first day I started driving at 3am till 1130pm in the night with 1100 km on the SUV trip meter. It was a dream fulfilled on the very first day itself and other days were added bonus.

We slept well in our rooms before again starting our journey to Ben Navis Range and Inverness. The next day brought some amazing places and amazing routes as were off our plan to Portree. We never thought that it will be a blessing in disguise. We reached Ben Navis range and took cable car to reach the top of the moutains. We saw people mountain biking, trekking enroute. It was so cold up above the top of the mountain and the air was flowing so fast that it made difficult to stay at the top for long. We started our journey to reach Inverness which was not more than 100 miles for the whole day. We roamed around the lakes and the cities to reach Inverness in the evening at 4 pm. We came to a halt to eat Domino’s pizza in a car parking and kept our car there to see Inverness on foot. We have our hotel booked in Inverness. We checked into the B&B we had booked for ourselves and saw the city on foot. We went on to see the Inverness airport and did some shopping at the nearest TESCO superstore. Finally, it was the day where we enjoyed the beauty of a hill station and the sea together. While travelling around Inverness, a police cab followed me and asked me to make a halt towards the side of the road. They came out of their car and asked me to come out too. They asked where are we coming from and told me my mistake. As there was no one on the road, I was driving in the middle and as someone from other side used to come, i took my vehicle towards the side. This made the policeman angry over me and told me with a warning to drive carefully and he will keep an eye on me. 

 

The next day was the time when we had to see the UK highlands. We left our B&B after having an English breakfast. We had no plans to reach anywhere that day as the full day was planned for highlands. We went to see a castle in highlands on random and it turned out to be a nice trip. After seeing the castle, we travelled to Edinburgh (231 Miles) via Aberdeen. In a town near Aberdeen, we found a simply amazing sea beach. We had plans to see the Edinburgh, under sea world the same day, so had to reach there before 530pm but GPS played spoilt sport as somehow two postcodes were entered in GPS. It made us cross the Forth Bridge thrice as we watched the beauty before being rejected entrance at Undersea world. It was time to checkout the beautiful city of Edinburgh. We saw the beautiful city before reaching our dormitory as we couldn’t get any B&B due to holiday rush. The only problem with dormitory was the unavailability to recharge our cameras and mobiles. We went out and eat at somewhat called the Tapas food joint which was costly as they gave the food in small katoris for a single person. We really loved seeing the city and finally sleeping on the dormitory room.

Next day we had to see the Edinburgh Castle and Underwater Sea World before finally saying goodbye to Scotland. It was a long travel back to London as we started around 3pm after having lunch at McDonald’s in Edinburgh. London was around 400 miles via Newcastle. I drove all the way before reaching home at around 930 pm and finally dropping my friend reached my house at around 1030pm. It was a great trip and I thoroughly enjoyed with all my friends and made some best ones out of them.

AmbiPur could certainly help keep the car fresh with it's fragrance. Checkout more at facebook.com/AmbiPurIndia

Cheers!!!

A dream got fulfilled and I am so happy! Thanks all!

 This post is written for Indiblogger Contest The Perfect Trip for AmbiPur