Sachebureke Abanotubanshi (Cheburek Cafe on Abanotubani)

3 December, 2015 | Restaurant reviews | 58 seen

The other day we were just wandering around Tbilisi sulphur bath (Abanotubani) district doing some cool photography of probably most popular tourist spot in Tbilisi - Abanotubani district. During our wanderings we noticed small doors with title - Cheburek Cafe and decided to return to this place once photography session will be ended.

Cheburek Cafe is located on Grishashvili street 8, Tbilisi

Those of you who don't know what a Cheburek is, here is a good explanation from Wikipedia - Chiburekki is a deep-fried turnover with a filling of ground or minced meat and onions. It is made with a single round piece of dough folded over the filling in a half-moon shape. A national dish of the Crimean Tatars and traditional for the Caucasian and Turkic peoples, it is also popular as snack and street food throughout Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Russia,Ukraine, as well as with the Crimean Tatar diasporas in Turkey and Romania.

Cheburek is one of my favorite street foods and I was interested to learn more what kind of chebureki they serve at this place - for surprise of me -…

Fresh Vegetable Market Near Gori Highway

2 December, 2015 | Shopping Venues | 8 seen

I once had a friend visiting me from Canada, he was pretty much obsessed with eco friendly foods, I took him to the local Tbilisi Dezerter bazaar and told - hey look there are plenty of eco foods here. He took some carrot from local salesman and answered me - this probably is natural, but it's not eco!

Believe me or not - but my friend was right, I understood that immediately. If you just like my friend are into eco thing - you wont probably find eco friendly food near Gori Highway (connecting Tbilisi with Batumi) some 60 km from nations capital. On the other hand if natural is OK then you can buy fresh vegetables here for sure.

In fact this is what we actually did after returning from a day trip from Borjomi - we bought a box with tomatoes (about 10kg) to latter prepare tomatoes in jelly (Check out my food blogger series not to miss an update on that)

Tomatoes for sale near Gori highway in Republic of Georgia

Negotiating a deal with local farmers

The thing I love in Georgia - you can always bargain about the price, so we bought a box of tomatoes for about 10 lari, instead of 17 lari. Depending how good…

Borjomi Cafe 1+2

1 December, 2015 | Restaurant reviews | 15 seen

If you are looking for a decent cafeteria in Borjomi I can recommend one - Borjomi Cafe 1+2 located close to the entrance of Borjomi park. I paid a visit here and tried different dishes in the middle of September 2015.

Borjomi cafe 1+2

This cafe is located just next to the entrance in Borjomi Park.

Borjomi cafe 1+2

Lovely interior at Cafe 1+2 in Borjomi

Khachapuri and Salads 

Although the prices here are about the average, taking into account it's good location and good service this is a place I can recomend once in Borjomi

Motsameta Monastery near Kutaisi in Georgia

30 November, 2015 | Churches and Monasteries | 112 seen

Motsameta monastery is one of the most spectacular sites I have visited while being living in Georgia. To get here yo will need either to own your vehicle or hire a taxi, probably there are organized tours as well heading to Motsameta monastery.

I first visited this site in Spring 2015, unfortunately it was already a night and I didn't see much nor photographed anything decent here, the next time I visited Motsameta was in Autumn 2015, together with my mom, this time I was better prepared and it was a day.

Rail tracks near Motsameta monastery

There is actually a train making a stop in front of the entrance at Motsameta monastery, the Train is connecting Kutaisi and Tkibuli

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Forest surrounding Motsameta monastery

From the main entrance you must go some additional 500 meters to actually reach monastery complex. As you go you are pampered with spectacular views like forest seen in above image

Motsameta monastery

And then you will notice a fragment from a fairy tail - Motsameta monastery standing still at the end of he cliff.

Valley surrounding Motsameta monastery

I'm not…

Water Reflections on Lisi Lake

29 November, 2015 | | 10 seen

She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city. - Roman Payne, The Wanderess

Spectacular water reflection photography done in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia on Lisi Lake.​

Water reflections on Lisi lake in Tbilisi

A perfect harmony water reflection

Mountain reflection on water

Boat deck reflection on water

Building reflection on water

Ducks

Cost of Living in Tbilisi (Republic of Georgia)

28 November, 2015 | Living in Georgia | 62 seen

This post is a result of an experiment I performed for one month in October 2015, I counted my everyday expenses and summed it up to see how much actually it costs to live in Georgia. This information might be useful if you are planing to move to Georgia or just to compare how your country stands to Georgia.

For tracking my (our) everyday expenses I installed Expense Manager Android app on my phone and entered spending just after purchases. 

Total expenses in October 2015

In October in total we spent GEL 4,385 which equals to $1,823 or EUR 1,708 (according to exchange rates on November 20,2015)

Now to clarify the results for this experiment I must mention that bellow listed expenses are for family of two + two cats.

Lets start with numbers:

We have a nice two bedroom apartment in almost city center (it's not Old Town, but still very good neighborhood). Apartments in Tbilisi are pretty affordable, you can get a decent apartment, equipped with fridge, washing machine and other …

Simple Aspic (Meat Jelly, Kholodets) Recipe

27 November, 2015 | Food blogger | 118 seen

In today's food blogger's series I will show how to prepare a really tasty and delicious homemade aspic out of pig's trotters.

I'm not sure how popular an aspic is in the Western world, but it is a super popular in post Soviet countries, and is served in every fiests. Russian have a name for it - a kholodets (Холодец).According to Wikipedia - Aspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatin made from a meat stock or consommé. Non-savory dishes, often made with commercial gelatin mixes without stock or consommé, are usually called gelatin salads. Nearly any type of meat can be used to make the gelatin: pork, beef, veal, chicken, turkey, or fish. The aspic may need additional gelatin in order to set properly. Veal stock provides a great deal of gelatin; in making stock, veal is often included with other meat for that reason. Fish consommés usually have too little natural gelatin, so the fish stock may be double-cooked or supplemented. Since fish gelatin melts at a lower temperature than gelatins of other meats, fish aspic is more delicate and melts more readily…

Third Traffic Spike: More than 7,500 Daily Users

26 November, 2015 | Servers | 6 seen

A huge traffic surge to this website was experienced on November 15 when total unique user count reached 7,732. The vast majority of them were coming from Turkey. 

Update: Learn how I got 10,000 Page views in a day

This was already third traffic spike to my blog, previous record was set back in January (2015) with 3,584 users. While the first serious traffic spike my blog experienced almost two years ago, when total daily traffic surged just above 1,000 daily users. For the couple of last months this is actually a daily traffic norm to my blog - well above 1,000 daily users every day, though the first traffic spike seemed very impressive for me.

Does 7,500 daily users impress me today? Yes, of course, though the excitement is not so huge as it was first time. Anyway 7,500 is a pretty decent number, so there is a reason to cover article on them.

I believe there will be some who are going to smile about such results, I mean those of you who are receiving traffic more than 10,000 unique visitors per day, but for me - well, it is still a great achievement. Best so far! Best of it, my…

How to add MailChimp Signup Form for Drupal

25 November, 2015 | Drupal Development | 15 seen

After being blogging for more than two years already and finally reached about 40,000 monthly unique visitors to my blog I decided it's time to set up an email newsletter. I knew there are some Drupal modules already, but I ended with a very simple solution not involving any of them (modules).

I have been using MailChimp in past to deliver email newsletters and I believe MailChimp is one of the best in the market. They offer free account for up to 2000 subscribers list. Perfectly what I need. Since I'm building my list from scratch I believe it will take a long time to get over 2000 subscribers.

MailChimp Lists

I created a new list, gave it a self explaining name and next looked for embedded code so I can embed a signup form on my Drupal site using blocks.

MailChimp Signup forms

Embedded forms works best if you are looking to display a signup form bellow your articles or in page sidebar.

You will have few options to customize your signup form and you will be provided with embed code to add to your Drupal website. After adding a few CSS lines to sites style sheet I ended up with following signup form for…

Postcards from Tbilisi

24 November, 2015 | | 9 seen

Tbilisi is city which have inspired many great poets, writers and of course travelers. Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy and even Marco Polo have spent some time in Tbilisi.

Who knows maybe the sulfur baths in Abanotubani district has inspired the great poets?!

As for a photographers - Tbilisi is a lovely destination and we have found a lot of inspiration here (This is the place I learned to create a decent night exposure photography).

This time we headed to catch the Golden Hour and ended up with lovely postcard style images from Tbilisi.

Tbilisi - thanks for being a piece of our lives.

David Agmashenebeli street in Tbilisi

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Metekhi church and river Mtkvari

Metekhi church and river Mtkvari in Tbilisi

Tbilisi old town

Tbilisi old town

Tbilisi Old Town and Narikala Fortress

Sioni church in Tbilisi

Postcards from Tbilisi

Vahtang Gorgasali statue and Tbilisi Old town

Monument "Mother Georgia"

Streets of Tbilisi's Old town…

Gelati Monastery in Georgia

23 November, 2015 | Churches and Monasteries | 81 seen

Gelati monastery together with Bagrati Cathderal are one of the main sights in this region (Imereti) in Georgia. Although I have been living in Georgia since 2011, first I visited this site just in the Spring 2015 together with my dad, unfortunately it was a late evening already and I was not proficient of taking night photography (now I'm).

The second time I visited Gelati monastery was together with my mom already in Autumn 2015. This time I was prepared much better and instead of just taking photographs here I took HDR images.

Gelati monastery near Kutaisi

Gelati is a monastic complex near Kutaisi, Imereti, western Georgia. It contains the Church of the Virgin founded by the King of Georgia David the Builder in 1106, and the 13th-century churches of St George and St Nicholas.

Bell tower at Gelati monastery

Gelati monastery complex

Arches and burials at Gelati monastery complex

Dome inside Gelati church

Wall paintings at Gelati monastery

Sundial at Gelati monastery

I wouldn't probably even notice this…

How To Make Floating Banana Photo Trick (Photoshop / Lightroom)

22 November, 2015 | Digital Photography School | 5 seen

I created this simple floating banana image using a tripod, camera and Adobe Ligtrooms + A little retouching in Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to make the image look even better so I did a HDR image.

Floating Banana Photography Trick

I did this image for my 365 day photo challenge project and submitted it as day 49 picture. I really feel proud of my self - like on day 1 I barely knew how to take a decent exposure using Manual mode, while on day 49 I'm photographing floating bananas already. I can't wait to see what will I submit at day 365.

Now back to the floating banana... Actually it is very easy trick. I was taking two separate images - one with a banana and background, while second just with background. I used tripod to have a fixed position for both of my pictures.

Now this is the tricky part - HDR images is done using a bracketing technique, which means instead of taking just one image you are taking at least 3 images (underexposed, overexposed and normal) and then sticking them together in Photomatix (there are other HDR processing tools as well). I wanted to make super cool HDR floating banana picture, so I…

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati near Motsameta

21 November, 2015 | Restaurant reviews | 12 seen

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati (Old Gelati in English) is located outside of Kutaisi in small village Motsameta. I had a chance to have a dinner here during a short one day tour around Kutaisi (Bagrati Cathedral, Gelati monastery and of course Motsameta monastery).

Dzveli Gelati restaurant serves a traditional Georgian cuisine, prices seemed somehow above average for me, but meal was just excellent. By the way this was on of the rare places in Georgia were vinegar is added to salads.

A large banquet hall in Dzveli Gelati restaurant

Restaurant Dzveli Gelati near Kutaisi

View from Dzveli Gelati restaurant

We asked to have a separate coupe room

Traditional Georgian tomatoes & cucumber salad

Ostri - Traditional Georgian meal

A cup of Turkish coffee at Dzveli Gelati

Pork barbecue 

Dzveli Gelati restaurant is located in a good place (next to the road heading to Gelati Monastery) it has a spacious rooms, while the price is above the average. If you are traveling a large group this place for sure can host…

Masterclass in Asian Cuisine

20 November, 2015 | Food blogger | 9 seen

At the start of November 2015 I took a master class in Asian Cuisine. The master class happened in a lovely Georgian restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi and was led by a gourmet chef from Russia Natalia Chvileva. You can follow Natalia on her Facebook page: Touch to Food

The reason that made me to take participation in such master class was simple - I love to cook, I enjoy Asian cuisine and I have a food blogger section on my blog. Being a food blogger means just one - I'm always learning new things and I'm happy to share my knowledge with my readers (you). This master class was not only good for learning new things in Asian cuisine but also a good practice for my digital photography school project, so I took a tripod and camera and was ready to learn new things.

And I learnt a lot.

Ingredients for Asian Cuisine master class

You can see there are a lot of sauces and actually sauces are one of the main ingredients in Asian cuisine. Also we were using soybean noodles instead of rice noodles, and we were using corn starch, I believe those were my first two discoveries in this master class. Prior to that I knew just regular noodles made from…

October 2015 Blog Traffic and Income Report 39,928 Users / $549.49

19 November, 2015 | Blogging | 6 seen

Today we are celebrating this blog's #22 traffic and income report. Unbelievable how fast times goes by. It seems just yesterday I sat at my laptop's monitor, installed Drupal on Linode VPS, registered a domain in Godaddy and started to explore is there a way I can get some traffic (back then I was not thinking about making actual money out of it) to my blog. 

On October 10, 2015 this blog celebrated its second anniversary - just wow. 2 years passed like a flicker. 

I was doing separate reviews both for traffic and income until last September, I just understood - how time consuming it is to provide 2 similar articles on related topic. Traffic and Income for any website goes hand to hand. The reason for publishing such reports and revealing secrets beyond the scenes are simple - Transparency matters. I hope my success or failures can give some ideas to you as well. On the other hand there are times when I'm planing to stop write reviews about traffic and income at all, well most probably I will do that once 100 000 user milestone will be (if) cracked. But you never know.

Back to the numbers…