The long struggle to get the pictures from my camera to my phone

Okay, so I'm pretty much always on the run, and I suck at having my laptop with me, because it adds heaviness to my backpack. Something that means that I often blog from my phone. Since we decided to go for this backpacking trip to asia though, I wanted better pictures than my sucky iphone 4 camera can deliver, but I did not want to bring along my heavy DSLR, so I opted for the tinier digital camera and bought my current Sony cybershot dsc-hx20v. And it's great! I love my camera! Which means, that I take it with me everywhere and take a lot of pictures. Which means I need to get them out of my camera, which in turn means I need to upload them with a cable to my computer and then blog.

I still am not keen to bring my laptop all around the place, and it's a definite no-no on the backpacking trip as it adds unnecessary weight - so I needed a solution. I needed something that could get the photos from my camera to my phone (which I always bring with me, and will bring with me to asia as well) . I searched around the net where people recommended a wifi sd card. But they were crazy expensive so I decided against it and kept searching for something cheaper.

Then I found something that worked for getting the pictures from the camera to an ipad. It was apples own camera connection kit - unfortunately it said on the website that it was not compatible with iphone (WHY U NO LOGICAL APPLE!?) - so I kept on looking for another type of camera connection kit and found this one on ebay:

The 5 in 1 connection kit for ipad that the seller insured me would work with my iphone 4 ( I specifically mailed and asked). It came around 2 weeks ago and i immediately tried it out. And how did it work? Obviously as you see on the box it says FOR IPAD, so yeah, no, no it didn't work at all. In fact the iphone didn't even react to it when I plugged it in. Super sucky.
So I demanded a refund and instantly got it and didn't have to return the product either (yay! Save time! Except, it's now just lying there on my printer, doing shit but take up space).

So no, No camera connection kit on ebay works with iphone. Why? I know, because I mailed each and every one of them and all said no, except this one, which I bought that obviously didn't work as I just said.  Sorry guys.

Next, I found this sd-card reader on miniinthebox.com that supposedly should work with iphone:

I specifically mailed and asked just as last time and got a yes. I didn't have huge hopes for it though, which was correct of me because the card reader didn't work. But at least this time my iphone reacted to the intrusion telling me to stop putting random shit it didn't recognize into it. So yeah, a tiny bit better maybe. Once again, I e-mailed back and got my money back instantly (yay for paypal!) and once again didn't have to send back the product (so this card reader lies on top of the other one on the printer, taking up even more space and being totally useless as I don't have an ipad).

So I had tried all the sd-card reader options and none worked. And so I was back to square one. I decided I had to go with the wifi sd card option and started searching around for the best one for my needs.

The original and widely known Eye-fi seemed to be hard to set up with a lot of bugs, plus it didn't have massive memory space (which I want if I'm going to spend a shit load of money on a new sd card, even one with wifi. So the two cards I found with a shitload of memory (32gb was the most I found on a wifi sd card, which is twice as much as my current sandisk 16gb card so it should be a fine upgrade) were Transcends wifi sd card and the new on the market Ez Share wifi sd card.

Transcend is well known to me and seemed good, plus it was the cheapest online, but in the end I found Ez share's function to turn off the wifi to save battery a really clever function that would work well on a backpacking trip when I don't want battery to run out too quickly and only need to use the wifi occasionally. Also it had an app to my liking with a pretty neat download que(which means you can download several photos to your phone at once and not just one at a time like many other wifi sd cards I found...) and a push function to automatically push any new photos to your phone (only if you constantly have the wifi function on of course). It also has 5 years warranty from the seller I bought it from though that's just bullshit, it's not like you ever use that.

Giving you this info video on the ez share for those of you who want to know more or are just super confused about what the hell I'm talking about ;)

Either way I ordered a 32gb Ez share wifi sd card from ebay and it was shipped today so it should arrive before or around when I return from dublin next wednesday evening. Sucks that I can't get it before Dublin, if I hadn't tried all theother things I would already have the sd card in my hand ;) But you know how it is! Sometimes you have to try all the clothes inyour wardrobe to know the first outfit you picked is the one.

Or somehting like that.

//Wayu

Inspirational artist

I just found a really inspirational artist that photographs (and edits of course) these absolutely stunning photos with concepts bordering between reality and fantasy. I love these kind of concepts of Beyond Reality and this artist does it extremely well. I snatched some photos of her website to show you all:

As you can see she is absolutely fenomenal! And these are just a few picks of some of her work.
The artist name is Nozomi Suzuki, a half japanese, half russian Beauty with incredible talent!
You can find more of her incredible work at her blog (www.mistwalkerphotography.wordpress.com) so go check it out, it will blow your mind!

These are by the way the kind of photos I would like have as big canvases on the wall - whenever I get a big house with a lot of wallspace I will fill them with inspiring artists work with a hint of imagination and fantasy.

//Wayu

Note: None of these photographs are taken, edited or in any way affiliated with me - All credit for these works of art should go to the artist Nozomi Suzuki (you can find her website here)

Review of the Nivea Pearly Shine lip balm

Last week I bought a new lipbalm from Nivea called Pearly Shine. I decided to try it out for my winter dry lips to see if it made a difference. Here's the verdict:

First of all the positive. It has a very cute colouring of the lips that is not too strong or too subtle that it doesn't show. Second it made my lips soft pretty fast as long as I used it as soon as I felt my lips dry up. My boyfriend commented on the obvious softening of my lips since I started using it and was impressed. It's also very cheap and you can buy it pretty much anywhere, plus it's small enough to have with you in your pocket so it's always accessible.

And off to the negative - truth be told it did make a difference - as long as I used it like fifteen times a day. As soon as I didn't use it for a few hours my lips became dry again. Now that's not really what I was looking for - frankly I felt kind of silly when I constantly pulled up a lip balm and colored my lips to infinity. I'd rather have something that will actually give some kind of long term smoothness for my lips. Basically it's not very long lasting, and apparently the taste isn't great either. My boyfriend commented on the taste and said I should get one of those lip balms that taste good instead.

All in all it's just a very short term solution which makes your lips look and feel more kissable for a few minutes - but if you actually get kissed in the period that your lips are softened by this product your lips will instead taste bad. So, all in all - not a very good solution.

At least not for me.

Final grade:  ♥♥♥♥♥ (two out of 5 hearts)

//Wayu

A new badass workout

So yesterday I decided to try out this workout I've been eyeing for a while. It's another one of Les Mills workots since I've had such a great experience with the other ones I've tried. It's called body combat and is an hour of punching, kicking and dodging an imaginary enemy in front of you.

I've heard it's a tough workout so I was ready for as much, so I decided to just try it out and do the best I could. When I got there I chatted a bit with the super cute, very tiny (as in short, she wasn't petite, she was FIT as hell) instructor and and she recommended me to come at least five times to get into it thoroughly as it would be a lot to take in at the beginning. Then, we all got ready by putting on these fighting gloves. The instructor said it would help us get into the mood.

The type of gloves we got to wear.

It was the same kind of gloves as the picture above. They didn't cover the fingers, only the knuckles and the hand. I had to search for quite some time before I found a pair that didn't just fall off me as I have pretty small hands (I can still wear children's gloves...), but I did eventually find a pair.

The instructor then showed us how to do a jab, cross, uppercut, two different side kicks, a regular karate kick, a high kick, some knee kick and elbow move before beginning the workout.

And then, it was all high intensity. The instructor screamed at us and psyched us up for the imaginary fight in front of us and it worked. I don't think I've ever worked so hard haha! There was no way I could have the stamina for the entire hour to give my all, yet you really wanted to - giving weak ass punches just made you feel like a sissy. So in the end you pushed yourself greatly.

And it shows in todays extreme muscle ache! I can barely move! So I'm pretty darn sure I had a great workout yesterday.

As I slowed my heart rate down after the class and put on my shoes I talked with another one of the participants. I told her I definitely didn't have the stamina to give it my all the entire class yet, but that I guessed it would come. She laughed and said I never would, because the more I learned, the more powerful I would be able to do the moves, so in the end I would never be able to give my all the entire class. Basically, it's a class that will always give you a thorough workout.

All in all, body combat is another great workout from Les mills (I really don't think they have any bad workout...) but it's not for the weak of heart! You don't have to have the greatest stamina (God knows I don't) because you will definitely get it if you start doing this workout, but you do need a little finish sisu. Or some anger. Or some kind of motivation, because it is a TOUGH workout, make no mistake about that.

But once you've done it you won't regret it.

//Wayu

Review of the abilicia yoga mat

So as I mentioned before I ordered a yoga mat to pursue my yoga further at home. And I found a cheap and stylish yoga mat from abilicia on sportamore.se that looked fine, it even came with a bag to carry the mat with you and a flier with some yoga poses. A real bargain! 

A picture of the abilicia yoga mat from sportamore.se

Or so I thought. After a little bit of a hassle to get the package home I managed to get it to my apartment and opened it. Obviously, the package was too big.

How the package looked when I opened it.

But the mat looked good felt nice to stand on. So I decided to try out a simple sun salutation the mat but immediately stopped when I tried the dog pose and my hands just slid of the mat! To be fair my hands were a little bit sweaty so I dried them off and tried again - and slid just as badly! Not only that, I found that while putting my hands on the mat they instantly got warmer from the not very breathable material - which was regular PVC by the way. So unfortunately it's barely to count as a yoga mat! A yoga mat that you can't do a dog pose on is not a toga mat!

So unfortunately the abilicia yoga mat gets the lowest of the lowest grade of only one heart out of five!
♥♥♥♥♥

On the other hand when I contacted sportamore.se about returning the mat they were stars about it! They answered me within an hour and immediately apologized for the inconvenience and wondered if I wanted a refund or another mat. Of course they also pay for the return postage :)
so to the sportamore.se service I have to give 4 out of five hearts!
♥♥♥♥♥
 Unfortunately I have to remove one heart for the abnormally huge package they sent me with the yoga mat, but other than that - perfect service :)

So now I'm going to have to try out another mat, wonder what it'll be next time...
And for now I'm going to have to keep on doing my yoga on the floor.

//Wayu

Dove intense repair overnight creme review

A few weeks ago I found a night-time hair mask that is said to return a whole month of lost protein to the hair in one night! I usually don't have hair masks overnight because it usually tends to mean a plastic bag on the head (to avoid the mask from getting on the pillow) that rustles in the night so you can't sleep - but this mask would apparently be sucked into the hair so no bag would be needed!
And since it wasn't very expensive and it was a brand that usually works well with my hair, I bought it and tested. I have now had the product in my hair one night a week since then and it has worked great! :)

The first time I used it my hair became a little hard, but because I have used protein masks before I know it can become a little hard when the hair is soaking up a lot of protein, with a little hair oil the hair became soft again though. But after the second and third time the hair didn't become hard, but just felt nice and vibrant again :) The bottom of my hair is unfortunately very worn because I used to dye my hair red every now and then and then bleach it back to my usual blonde hair again ... After a few such sets of dyeing and bleaching it became pretty worn. Now I'm growing it out again and am slowly cutting off the worn parts in installments at my hairdresser.

In any case,  my hair needs all the care it can get until the worn part is gone! And this product works great :)

I woke up this morning after having it in my hair overnight and after brushing out my hair it looked like this:

 
So what's the product? :) Some expensive hairdresser brand? Nope, it's a sweet little bottle of Dove's intense repair series called just "intense overnight repair cream" and it is very worth it since you don't have to use that much in your hair for it to work. It is not particularly expensive either - it costs between 40-50kr and you can get it at your local store, like ICA or Coop, or any other regular grocery stores that sell Dove.

Overall rating from me is 4 out of 5 hearts ♥♥♥♥♥

//Wayu