Product Review - Kjeldsens - Oat & Cranberry Cookies

Hi Guys,

Pick n Pay is one of the groceries store here in South Africa and I usually purchase all my groceries from there only. It also offers loyalty schemes on every shopping you do so you get back 1% of your money back in points. One fine day, I went to one of it's biggest stores in Woodmead and came across a promotional scheme where if you shop for more than R500 you can spin the wheel and win some goodies from the store. 

I was lucky enough to win a package containing a lot of eatables and came across these cookies from Denmark. As you know, Cranberries is my favourite and having them in Oat cookies was icing on the cake. 

The brand Kjeldsens belongs to Kelsen Group from Denmark and also has the @Royal_Dansk_SA Cookies (www.royal-dansk.com) under it's umbrella. The best thing about these cookies are that they are all imported from Denmark and not packed/produced here or anywhere else in the world other than Denmark. 

I opened the packet and came across a silver packing inside the cardboard box and there inside the cookies were nicely packed. As soon I started eating one cookie, I felt awesome taste and great rich flavour. I really liked the light cookies with great health benefits. Oats and cranberries are both good for your health rather than any other normal biscuits. 

The mistake I did after enjoying some of the cookies is that I threw the silver foiled thing that biscuits came in and put remaining cookies just like that in the cardboard box. After some days when I ate the cookies, it was kind of turned soft due to some of the moisture that it took from the surroundings. As winters are coming in Johannesburg, my cookies turned soft and I really felt bad. But still with Tea, the cookies taste nice. Thanks a lot to Pick n Pay for giving me an opportunity to eat some nice cookies and that too for free, though I had to do shopping more than R500, which any which ways I had to that day.

Do try them out, pick them up from Pick n Pay or any other stores of your choice. 

Cheers!!!

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

Promotional Goodies - Canon Printers & Cameras

Hi Guys,

Canon has been a competition to the Nikon in their DSLR range of cameras and it's on the personal choice of the amateur or professional photographer which one he likes the best. I don't have any DSLR from any of the two brands at the moment but I do have a lot of promotional goodies from both the brands. 

Makro is the gaint retail outlet in South Africa, it's the Walmart of SA and it's run by them only. Walmart has three brands here in SA - Makro, GAME and Dion Wired. Makro do offers a lot of deals from time to time and I have always benefitted from them. I did bought my iPAD3 32gb wifi at the lowest price possible from there in one of their clearances sale. 

Last time I was at Makro, Canon DSLR Cameras and Home Photo Printers had setup a canopy showcasing their products and also offered to get yourself clicked by their 650D camera. They then were printing your snaps using the small printer and was giving them out to you as hard copy. As I love myself much more than anything else so I never let go of any such chances where someone is so ready to take photographs of me.

I brought more of my friends to get their snaps clicked also and Canon offered me a great Muffin from Fournos Bakery along with a goodie bag for my gesture towards their setup. Goodies bag included a cap, notepad and a pen endorsed by Canon in their Red and white colours.

Thanks a lot Canon and looking forward to getting a DSLR sponsored so that I can tag the same in all my posts and keep up the brands flag flying high. Follow then on twitter for a lot of contests and prizes @Canon_SA

Cheers!!!

Twitter Goodies - Fox Star Movies SA - NuMetro Tickets

Hi Guys,

Movies are an integral part of our living. We can live without them also but they bring in a lot of fun, laughter, music, romance, love, thoughts, feelings & emotions in our lives. I am a fan of movies and there was a time when I used to maintain an excel containing how many movies I have watched in a week, month, quarter and year. I used to set my targets to watch this number of movies this year etc etc. Crazy I am for music and movies.

Fox Star Movies loves my passion for the movies and I have been a fan of their stuff since the beginnings. I have won their several contests in India via their Twitter handle @foxstarIndia . I tried my luck by following them here in South Africa @foxfilmsZA and after some weeks I won their Mr. Peabody & Sherman Contest. I received a couple tickets vouchers to watch whichever movie in 2D, whatever time, whichever date till 1 May 2014. It was a great prize as it gives me the flexibility to watch my favourite movie at NuMetro Cinemas here in Johannesburg.

Thanks a lot, @FoxFilmsZA for this awesome prize. Looking forward to win a lot of them in future.

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!

Twitter Goodies - Royal Dansk - Mug with Spoon

Hi People,

I really love TEA and when one gets something which he loves the most and makes his drinking experience awesomely great, Thank you is the only word to express gratitude. Twitter is always brimming with contests no matter which country you are in this world and you can win with a few cookies and tea in hand.

I really liked the Royal Dansk Goodie which I received for their ongoing Twitter contest. 

Royal Dansk is running a contest on Twitter handle @Royal_Dansk_SA where one has to answer the question they ask weekly and can win the goodies bag prize as well as a chance to win the grand prize which will be announced for tweeples from Cape Town, Johannesburg etc where they will stay and holiday in a Royal resort/hotel. Every week people are winning and getting entry tickets to win the royal experience in their own city. I am also looking forward to winning other goodies (really loves their stationery as showcased on the Twitter handle) and entry into the Johannesburg Grand prize next quarter.

Do join in and get these amazing biscuits and mugs, notepads, pens etc as well as a chance to try your luck in the Grand prize. Do check in the entire range of Cookies at www.royal-dansk.com

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!

Product Review – Seagate Expansion Desktop Drive – 3 TB @Seagate

Hi People, 

I have been always a data cruncher which means no matter what’s the source, I want all the data downloaded on my laptop. Due to this tendency, I have always been short of hard disk space. As in South Africa, Internet usage is the most expensive thing to do and you will be sharing the movies/music or other important data only using your portable HDD's or ever-increasing capacities of pen drives. 

My journey with portable hard disks started when my brother gifted me his 40GB HDD from his Sony Playstation 3 and replaced the PS3 with 200 GB one way back in 2009. It was good to have and really sorted out my need at that point in time but as HD data started to come into the market, so was the need to store the same. 

I bought a Transcend 640 GB HDD on my birthday from Nehru Place, New Delhi, India and took the same to London. It was working fine but one day when I was copying some 100GB of songs from a friends laptop, it got corrupted and since then it's not been working. I have contacted customer care but all they say is that your cable is not right whereas I am using the supplied cable. Pathetic! Never ever I thought I will buy Transcend ever again. 

I was in London and Curry's offered a deal on Western Digital Elements portable 1 TB HDD and I bought it in 2010. I do think about it as it was more of an American brand which was not much popular in India and the UK. But nevertheless, I bought it and made my friends bought the same also. I blogged about the same here and it's one of my top posts. It's working perfectly well and in full capacity but then I wanted more data to be stored. The more you capture photographs or video's, the more you require disk space in your laptop or HDD. All my multimedia devices were full and took a long time to start also. 

Hence the decision to buy Seagate Expansion Desktop Drive with 3 TB HDD capacity so that I can just dump everything in one corner of my room and if required can refer back to the same. 

It's an awesome and beautiful device which offers 2.72 TB of space to users. The transfer speed is based on USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 connections. It took some time to transfer data but all my devices are able to breathe freely now with much more memory available for Operating systems to do their cleaning and regular stuff. 

I got this one from an electronics store - DION WIRED which offered the same on sale at R1400 from its regular price of R1900. It was much cheaper here as compared to the Indian market and my friend immediately wanted one for his Nikon D600 photography and his trip to GIR National Park where he captured 72GB of images in a span of 2-3 days. His camera is featured on my blog here. 

The online reviews for this HDD are not so great but I need to try it further to believe in them. Till that time, I am taking it ahead with my gut feeling and copying all my personal stuff etc in the same. I hope Seagate has not lost out on customer grievances as Transcend and will fully replace my device in case something crashes, unlike Transcend where that 640GB HDD is kissing the dust in my store at Gurgaon. 

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!

Twitter Goodies - Incredible Connection #Selfie Contest

Hi Guys,

I have been in South Africa since Nov 2013 and was really missing all the competitions and winnings that I used to do in India, so I thought of trying out the Twitter space here. I started following various brands and companies I was aware of and came across @IncConnection . It's a electronic retail store here and is always active on social media space. They launched a contest on the occasion of Valentine's week to send them selfies with the people you love. My selfie with my daughter fetched me "ON THE SPOT" Award and I received these awesome goodies. A Flexible LED Light for laptops and an Ouann multimedia headset with microphones. 

Flexible LED was in my wish list from many a days so I felt really great to receive the same.But as you know, I love headphones and these ones are not that great of the likes of Sennheiser or Sony or Skull Candy that I have already in my kitty.

It was my first win here in South Africa and I really thank Incredible Connection for the same. 

Cheers!!!

Fortitude is automatic

Hi Guys,

FORTITUDE is courage in pain or adversity and it comes to all of us automatically when we see someone close to us in pain or facing some situations where he/she might need our help or their lives is in danger.

We all must have faced these situations and when we fight for someone we love, we feel good. The human emotions are all made up of helping and supporting each other through thick and thin. We all try to share our joys and our problems because that is what brings us together and closer to each other.

Cheers!!!

Indiblogger & British Airways - Go Further to Get Closer #MrAndMrs Contest

 

How far would you go to get closer to someone you love? 

We all do like to spend some quality time with the people we love, it can be parents, in laws, wife, son/daughter, brother, sister, cousin, relatives or friends. We all try to go as further as our pockets and time allows us to be with them. I have a small story which I would like to share where I think I went a lot further to get close to my wife and daughter. My wife used to work in Mumbai whereas I was in Delhi after our marriage. She took some 3 months leave to come to Delhi and look out for job. She tried a lot but when the time was over, her company retrenched her without any notice. She fought hard for a good job in her life and did got but now it was no more. She came back to Delhi and she tried a lot but she got no job in the area of specialization she wanted. Meanwhile, we were blessed with a beautiful daughter and it was already some 14 months that she was without the job. We tried a lot for her job and even used the services of job websites but of no use. She got a job in Mumbai once again which was a contract but the difficulty lied in the small daughter which was just 4 months old at that time. We fought a lot over going and not going as our daughter is small and she will get a job in Delhi. Meanwhile, with a new year, we tried a lot and it was the time, when I used to sit outside with our 6 months old daughter in the car, while she is being interviewed. My parents and her parents were out-stationed and could not come to help us too. She was interviewed by many companies in her job profile and as locations was far so I used to take both of them with me. It used to be a great experience as my daughter wanted to be with her mother always. Finally, there was that day when I knew that she will crack the job interview this time and we were sitting in the car for three days while she was offered the job. It was a great day because it took her more than 20 months to get the same kind of job she was looking for and all because I was not able to move to Mumbai myself.

Her very first day at job, it was my day to take care of our 8 months old daughter and I took a leave to take care of her. It was the day when I realized that it’s so difficult to raise a kid without mother being present. She will be gone the whole day and I tried to feed her on her mom’s advice, played with her but that day I was not able to brush my teeth. She didn’t allowed me to move anywhere as she thought as I will also be gone as she couldn’t find her mom too. Considering my situation, my mother in law came and supported us for some days. But it was difficult for her too and I got an onsite offer around the same time. This was required to be grabbed as we both had to pay for our educational loans. This created to a lot of confusion in our lives and with small daughter it brought a lot of stress as to where to keep her. We tried keeping her with a maid but it made her a little slow and tired. With me gone to London, she was taken care by the maid only but then something happened and the maid left. My daughter had to go to her maternal grandparents but they could only take care of her for about a month or so. It was the time when my mother took hold of my daughter and she was facing all the change of places. She was getting good care but then suddenly my mother met with an accident and her right hand was fractured. Again, it was a great problem for the family, so my daughter was shifted to my chacha ji home where my cousins took great care of her. My mother didn’t want her to go anywhere else, as she made a lot of friends there and she was happy with them. It was quiet a stressful time and I could not take my wife as I didn’t had the marriage certificate. My wife used to travel 300 kms every weekend to meet our daughter. It used to disturb my daughter’s frame of mind as she would miss her after she is gone every Sunday night. It was also not that safe to travel alone 300 kms every Friday and Sunday nights and too tiring.

I came back from London after a span of 7 months with a lot of toys, sweets and chocolates but she was afraid to come to me. Though she recognized me but it was after sometime she came to me. My brother and his wife too came from USA around the same time. She was very happy to see us all. I drove the marriage certificate thing as my wife’s mom was busy in something and couldn’t travel. It was becoming difficult but finally with a lot of persuasion we got our marriage certificate formalities completed. When I talked to my company about their VISA processing they said that there is no budget as it’s March end. We will approve your request on 1 April. They did approve the request over email on 1 April but I could not raise the request in our system as the cost centres for the old year got expired and the new ones was not made till the 15^th May. Again a lot of trouble and when I raised the request they got their visa’s processed after a lot of documentation went through me from London. It was around the time to travel, my project said that they are releasing me and all the hopes again diminished to show them the city of London. My boss wanted me to go back to India and I requested to stay may be in another project and they found out another project for me. But again, the travel request was not approved and the system wanted to know whether I will be in London for another six months or not? Somehow after a lot of drama, my super boss approved their travel and they finally came to see me in London. 

It was a great pleasure to see both of them again after a gap of 4 months. It was a great beginning of good times and we saw the great city of London, Bath, Stonehenge, Isle of Skye together. My daughter started speaking there only but also got addicted to a lot of milk there. They stayed there for 23 days and it was the best time of my life. I celebrated my birthday during that time. I soon came back as I could not find other goal for myself to achieve after everything was sorted out in my life. I went back in another 2 months time to stay with my family and my daughter was admitted to play way school and I used to pick her after the office. It was a great time that I spend with here while travelling back to home and thereafter.

Once again I am in South Africa and she is in India and I do miss them a lot…

 More info at - http://bit.ly/1epU8Uj

British Airways reduced the distance between families via their services and I am too looking forward to dividing the distances between me and my family. 

HOPE makes life live!

Hi Guys,

HOPE is something we all need and we all have to take us through the journey of life. Hope makes all things possible with right actions and will power to achieve the same.

As mentioned in the picture, "Hope may also refer to the desire for victory and lasting peace". We all take actions towards a goal with a lot of enthusiasm with great hope that we will achieve the same sooner than later.

Hope does brings a lot of stability during the difficult times and this all the world has read and found out from a lot of books and movies based on World War times and situations likes these.

I do hope that my blog will reach 100,000 pageviews by the end of this year and I am taking actions towards achieving this goal.


Cheers!!!

Indiblogger Travel Smart with Skyscanner to South Africa

Hi Guys,

Holidays comes and we try to plan for a great vacations but there is always an issue of train tickets, or spouse not getting holidays, airplane tickets not cheap, some relative coming to your house, some urgent work to be done at office etc. 

I was trying to give a surprise to my wife because of her constant nagging and cribbing that I have not taken her anywhere in the last six years of our marriage. I tried to find out a destination which offers a lot of scope in terms of sightseeings, cultural heritage, wild life, sea and beach views and a modern as well as great countryside. 

I went through a lot of word of mouth advices from many a friends, websites and travel guides and finally came to choose South Africa as my dream destination. South Africa offers a lot of great holidays with it's cities like Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town & a lot of forest reserves like Kruger national park, Drakenburg Forest reserves. It has been showcased in a lot of hindi movies especially Race and Race 2 which I really loved watching. 

The next step was to find out what will be the cost of tickets, hotels and food expenses so that I don't go overboard and had to eat free food in Langar at Gurudwara or Hare Krishna Temple of ISCKON afterwards. I tried looking for various apps which I searched on my ipad and HTC one. It reminded me of an app that my brother once told me about as made by Google called itasoftware. I instantly downloaded the same and tried to find the cheapest prices of airfares between New Delhi to Johanneburg. I could find some cheaper fares but could not book the tickets due to the limitations of the app. I felt really sad as the app used to show cheap price but when I did desktop search on my laptop, the prices was much more.

It reminded me to do a google search to find out an app which can do both and luckily, i found out SkyScanner and suddenly seeing it's logo it came to my mind that my wife was wearing a tshirt having the same logo, who went in one of the Indiblogger meets in Delhi and got the same. I thought of giving it a try due to my trust on Indiblogger and my wife. 

The app offered me not only the lowest rates but also booked the flights for me at those rates. I could plan the lowest detail for my selected flight. It took me to it's partner website from where I could book the tickets. I kept changing the dates and found the app really fast and responsive. I could book the cheapest tickets which suited my budget from Delhi to Johannesburg via Dubai and then from Johannesburg to Cape Town. This was planned just using the app and my mobile phone.

I was very happy as I got some money saved on my tickets and booked Taj Hotel in CapeTown due to my association with TATA group and in Johannesburg, I could book Town Lodges. I got the car rented for local travel via AVIS and this all really helped me stay on my feet to roam around the country easily. 

As soon as I reached Johannesburg, we went on to see the Lion & Rhino Park where my daughter played with the Cubs and Eddie the leopard. We really had fun at Sandton and Rosebank Malls. We played and won / lost a some of money in Montecasino and Emperor's palace in Johannesburg. We got to see the musical play Zingara at MonteCasino and watched Trevor Noah live in his full on comedy action. We saw Lilysleaf which is a historical place.

We trekked some mountains in Drakenburg forest reserve and saw a lot of wild life in Kruger National Park. My daughter was very happy to see Giraffe, Zebra, Antelopes, Lions, Fox, Wild beast, Ostrich,Snakes etc.

We ventured to see the village life in South Africa and enjoyed driving on the Garden Route. We did bungee jumping and a lot of other adventure sports in Durban and Cape Town including Shark cage diving, Sky jump from the airplane. We saw table mountain and Robben island, the place where Nelson Mandela spent

his 27 years in jail. 

Overall it was a great time spent visiting a country which was so rich in it's wild life and cultural heritage. We bought a lot of gifts for our friends and relatives. We got Ostrich eggs with a lot of designs and other memorabilias and it was all made possible because of the tickets that we got using Skyscanner app. 

You too try it out and make a lot of memories to cherish forever...

Thanks

More info can be found at - http://www.skyscanner.co.in

Valentine's date with New Balance @BallzRadio

Hi Guys,

It was a valentine's week and I was missing my wife a lot. There has been nothing I was doing other than work and I was feeling very bored. The valentine's day fell on Friday and my office celebrated the achiever's day where many a people got certificate for the job well done. We didn't got the same so it was demotivating to an extent but they covered it with a cup cake which were delicious.

I reached home around five and went on to drink a cup of tea. I checked my twitter and saw people posting snaps of reaching the venue and showcasing their new NEW BALANCE 980 FRESH FOAM shoes. I too tweeted many a times asking about the venue earlier but didn't got any response and that day admin was working a lot so I got a response at 535pm after the event got started at 5pm. I asked them if I can come and they said yeah. I searched the place and it was very near to my home. I went there and lost way as it was not the place I knew so asked someone in Woodmeads mall security which guided me to the right location. I entered the @BallzRadio office premises and parked my car. They said that the last group left just now and I need to catch up with them. I immediately ran after them and what a run!

 Oracle was not the sponsor :-P

It was a lot of fun and the @UrbanFitSA team really made it more awesome with their exercises and humour. We need to keep tweeting and as you all know I have done bachelors in tweeting business so I kept myself on it. I was doing some exercises on my way catching up the enthusiastic people but they were awesomely fast and fit. 

Aquavita was our mineral water drinking partner for the run.

It was time to salute all those who came all the way on this day of Valentine’s for making them bathe in sweat and sand. To my surprise, I was the winner of the tweeter contest and got my brand new NBshoes of my size. John Walland was the chief guest of the fun run and he presented all the people with awesome goodies. It was another story that everyone else got it too and they got @BallzRadio goodies on top of it which I missed somehow being a first prize winner. 

This is Mr. John Walland

My new New Balance Fresh Foam 980 shoes

After the meet admin of Twitter handle of the brand came to me and congratulated me on my win and said she wanted me to win with my hilarious and witty tweets. I realized that this was my first ever run after I started working in an IT company. Though I considered myself fully fit but regular run really makes you active and brimming with energy to take on office work with ease. I really thank New Balance and Ballz Radio for the FRESH FOAM 980 running shoes. The target that day I had in my mind was to run 5kms for a weekend racing event with my employer and later on that in another blog post.

Cheers!!!

Follow BallzRadio on twitter and www.ballz.co.za/
Follow UrbanFitness SA on twitter 
Follow New Balance on twitter
Checkout FRESH FORM 980 

All photographs are taken using HTC ONE phone

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

Photo Walk - Wild Safaris in South Africa

Hi Guys,

This is a new series of posts of all the wild jungles we have here in South Africa. It's a beautiful country with a lot of country side, a lot of forest/game reserves, jungle safaris, rivers, mountains, plains, trekking and adventure sports.

In this feature I will introduce you to a lot of animals which we can see in the forest reserves running here and there. I might not know their names but will post a guide too which contains their names.

 These pictures were taken using my ages old Panasonic FZ5Camera in a game reserve we went to for seeing elephants, lions, leopards etc but could not find any of the BIG 5 as they call them here.

All we could see was these Antelopes having morning walk around the jungle.

Cheers!!!