Blog Archive: March 2017
Brutal Tours - Explore Soviet Georgian Architecture in Tbilisi
| Travel guides | 44 seen
A while ago with a friend of mine (another expat in Georgia) we started an online community on Facebook: Georgia Expat Photographer club.
In matter of no time we gathered a critical member count and were looking to start offering some day trips in Tbilisi or Georgia, helping other photographers explore interesting and cool sites for a free or minimum charge.
Like organizing these trips by ourselves between club members, kind of crowd funding for photographer travelers.
Learn more: First Georgia Expat Photographer Club Meeting
We did a few day trips at the start, like Hiking in Borjomi (Georgia) or Hiking In Birtvisi Canyon (Hidden Trails Of Georgia), also we did some tutorials on HDR photography for club members and so on. Unfortunately, at one stage we stopped our activities, because of passive interest from group members, people were joining but didn't showed much activity toward organizing things, and we let the club in a free flow, after all - basically photographers were just submitting their photos or some club members tried to marketing their services, which IMHO is OK, as long services…
18 Top Best Selling Asus Laptops in 2017
| Laptop Reviews | 300 seen
ASUS laptops continue to be popular in 2017, making up about 20% of best-selling laptop computers on Amazon's TOP 100 best sellers list.
In this article I've listed 18 traditional ASUS laptop models, that will suit almost all consumer verticals, starting with cheaper editions affordable for students, and ending with very powerful laptops designed for gamers.
Top 14 Best-Selling Asus Laptops in 2023
I've excluded ASUS Chromebooks, which actually are pretty popular nowadays, but it just seems fair to list here traditional laptops. In case you are looking which Chromebook to choose here are two models from ASUS you might consider:
- Asus Chromebook C202SA-YS02
- ASUS C302CA-DHM4 Touchscreen Chromebook
Speaking of me, I have been a proud owner of a budget ASUS X552 since the end of 2015, and have no regrets yet.
Alternatively see: Popular ASUS Laptop / Notebook Releases in 2017
A quick note: This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a purchase on…
Inner Wall From AAC Blocks For Pump Room
| Home Remodeling | 9 seen
Last home remodeling works are carried out for this end, in today's article - final inner wall from aac blocks, for auxiliary room, where right now just pump is stored in the corner, but it's planned to install a boiler and washing machine at this part of house soon.
See: Connecting The Dots - Water Pipe And Pump Installation
Pump room
I made foundation for inner wall few days ago, also see how we demolished old walls here: Demolishing Inner Walls To Build AAC Block Walls
First row of aac blocks
Now, for the next Summer (2017), one of the first works we will start with, will be pouring in concrete floors, right now looking on these pictures it seems another epic journey.
Almost done
UAE Resident: Why Migrate to Georgia
| Living in Georgia | 6 seen
This is a guest post by Mrs. Fatima Ali, reader of this blog, who contacted me about possible migration from UAE to Georgia.
As lately I've been receiving several such questions and mostly from UAE, after giving some basic advice, I asked Fatima Ali, could she come up with a short article in a free flow on topic - Why Georgia?
See: Can You Buy a Good Life in Tbilisi With $500 as a Foreign Expat?
With the permission of Mrs. Fatima Ali and little re-editing I publish her honest answer bellow:
As a resident of the UAE vacationing in Georgia and either you've spent a few days or weeks there you cant deny the instant realization you get from the moment you walk out the airport that this country is indeed completely different.
See: All about Georgia
Dubai - a city of so many charms, might seem like the dream, but realistically speaking, and mainly because of the location the weather is its greatest con. Georgia, on the other hand, is the country of a full circle of the 4 seasons available throughout the year.
Beautiful breath taking scenery puts your soul at instant ease, and if you're…
DIY - Bookshelf From Wooden Boards
| DIY | 8 seen
Time after time I love to excel as a Do-it-yourself guy, for today's DIY article - how i built bookshelf for our rural house from wooden boards.
Let's start that we have a complete mess in our master bedroom, as we don't have any storage to store stuff. A time ago I built a king size bed frame, again from boards, see: DIY - Bed Frame King Size Rural Style, now it was time to put in order that mess.
Mess
Can you find a cat there?
Wooden boards for bookshelf
Those boards are leftovers from roof works done in Summer 2015, see Meet the New Roof (Pictures Before and After)
Almost there
Look who have found a nice shelter
Final result
Restaurant Kala in Tbilisi
| Restaurant reviews | 19 seen
Restaurant Kala in Tbilisi's Old Town actually is one of the first restaurant I've visited once set my foot on Georgian land back in April 2011.
I have spent countless evenings here, enjoying Georgian red wine, listening to great live musicians and of course trying dishes.
I would list Kala as a medium priced place, with pleasant atmosphere and great service.
Interior at Kala restaurant in Tbilisi
Salmon sandwich served with French fries
Basically here at Kala they serves both Georgian and European cuisine. VISA cards accepted.
Connecting The Dots - Water Pipe And Pump Installation
| Home Remodeling | 8 seen
This day marks a huge milestone - for the very first day, since house was originally built in 1896 - house will have a fully automatic water supply.
This day also marks the end of the planned major tasks for Summer 2016. Gosh, that was a mad ride - let me explain, in order to get water supply inside house, at start we had to drill a bore hole, see:Drilling Borehole , then we had to completely rebuild some walls for house and construct both pump room and bathroom. As it might sound straightforward, it involved a lot of planing, managing, constructing a of course money,
Now was the day we could connect the dots, and it started with an excavator arriving in our yard:
Excavator arrives
The magic will start right now.
Excavator in work
Now, that a hell good way to dig a trench, instead of shovel
Trench for water pipes
There is planed to have an automatic water system from one pump both inside house and outside (in future garden oven area), kind of reverse water supply system is built
Pipes inside the house
As you can see, at start it was all about to build rock…
Darbnīca Cafe Liepāja
| Restaurant reviews | 13 seen
Centrally located on Lielā street in Liepāja, Darbnīca Cafe is another nice addition to my Liepāja restaurant reviews (they are few, I know).
We travel to Liepāja once in a while, during our Summer's in Latvia, mostly for buying some construction materials for our home remodeling works or handling some financial tasks (banks and so on).
It was on early September morning I had to handle something a bank, and we agreed to have some brunch after that. While looking for a parkin spot, we noticed Cafe Darbnīca and agreed to go there after bank,
Unfortunately at 9:30,when we entered Darbnīca brunch was still not available (seems they are serving it from 11:00) and instead of brunch we had a chance to enjoy croissants and some cafe late.
Darbnīca cafe on Lielā street 8, Liepāja
From outside looks like another hipster place, but hey - I love hipsters, they are bizarre and fun.
Croissant and coffee late
Demolishing Inner Walls To Build AAC Block Walls
| Home Remodeling | 12 seen
In today's home remodeling series a story how I continued to build a bathroom and how we demolished an inner wall to later rebuild it from scratch, again with aac blocks.
Let's start with what we got:
Wall to be demolished
All major tasks for this Summer (2016) have been done, what's left - to rebuild two inner walls, one for bathroom, second for pump room. In above picture - pump room.
Demolishing guy
Edgars helped a lot this Summer, he is my demolishing guy today.
Wall being demolished
A very spacious space actually. If at the right - it's planned to store all auxiliary equipment, like water pump, washing machine and boiler, then at this room it's planned to build a kitchen in future.
View from loft
At the left corner - pump room, on the right - bathroom.
Panoramic photography of inside view
I can only agree - a lot of work is still asked.
Preparing works to build aac block wall for bathroom
See: Preparation Works For Bathroom - Breaking Ceiling, Demolish A Wall, Pouring Foundation
…
Preparation Works For Bathroom - Breaking Ceiling, Demolish A Wall, Pouring Foundation
| Home Remodeling | 6 seen
Ok, it took a long, but here I'm returning to the building bathroom from scratch works
Here is what we are going to do today:
At first we will need to break ceilings or floor at the loft, then we will remove existing inner wall and then we will pour in foundation.
Following works were actually carried out during two days, but for the ease of this article works from both days are featured here in one article.
Loft
Here you can see loft for our house, flooring (if we can call it so) is completely damaged. A year ago, while replacing roof we removed a few tons of sand from here, see: Unloading Few Tones of Sand from Loft
As you can see from image above, outer walls for upcoming bathroom have been already replaced, now it's time to construct inner walls, for doing that we are going to remove a part of ceiling to have a free acess to remove wall which is downstairs.
Wall to be demolished
A lot of hand power and in about and hour it looks like this:
Wall removed
Nicely! Now, we are going to rebuild this wall from aac blocks, but prior to that I'm going to pour in…
Reading Terminal Market Philadelphia
| Shopping Venues | 19 seen
Reading Terminal Market is an enclosed public market found at 12th and Arch Streets in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Over one hundred merchants offer fresh produce, meats, fish, artisan cheese, groceries, ice cream, flowers, grilled cheese, baked goods, crafts, books, clothing, and specialty and ethnic foods. Every space in the market is rented out; three of the vendors are descendants of original market merchants. The market is open every day of the week. The Pennsylvania Dutch merchants (a small but significant minority) generally do not operate Sunday through Tuesday.
I've been 3 times to the United States, three times I've been to Philadelphia and three times I've been to the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. Reading terminal market should be on very travelers bucket list - it's just awesome.
Reading Terminal market in Philadelphia
The Reading Terminal Market occupies the ground floor and basement levels of the Reading Terminal's former train shed, now part of the Philadelphia Convention Center. Market stalls occupy the ground floor with entrances on Filbert Street to…
Top 20 Best Touch Screen Laptops
| Laptop Reviews | 21 seen
Are you researching your options for a brand new touchscreen laptop? Look no more, in this article I've listed top 20 best-selling touch screen laptop models on Amazon.
Touch screen devices seem have just started to take a throttle, though I remember I had a chance to see first touch screen laptop in action already back in 2012. A brand new or certified refurbished, in 2019 a touch screen laptop can be acquired for as little as under $100 (Galileo Pro 2-in-1 tablet with detachable keyboard). If you prefer some more known brand names, you will find HP, ASUS, DELL and LENOVO among popular touch screen devices in 2019.
A quick note: This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a purchase on Amazon site, I might earn an affiliate income from that. Prices for laptops listed on this page are retrieved using Amazon Product Advertising API and is updated daily. For actual prices please refer on the product page on Amazon.
2019 Lenovo 11.6" HD IPS Touchscreen 2-in-1 Chromebook, Quad-Core MediaTek MT8173C (4C, 2X A72 + 2X A53), 4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC…Rock Garden Extended
| Home Remodeling | 9 seen
It was at the start of the September (2016) - we were finishing wall replacement works and already had installed first bearing beams, there were still some things left on home remodeling works, but all the major tasks were done, and everything was done to preserve house for the winter (as we will be absent)
It was good day to spend some hours in garden and continue shaping our rock garden, please see:
Shaping trail in the rock garden
Gravel and soil from pond is used to form trail and on the sidewals soil for the plants.
Would you believe, if I told you, there was actually a dump bellow the rock garden just a few months earlier? See: The Big Spring Territory Cleanup
Second strawberry harvest at the start of September 2016
We lost out harvest in June to the corvine's, while we were on the trip around Spain, see: 7 days in Spain (Region of Andalusia)
Also see how we built a veggie garden in the boxes: Our First Veggie Garden: Planting Plants in Boxes
…
5 reasons why Batumi is better than Moscow (or other big city)
| Living in Georgia | 64 seen
This article was originally written as a guest post by Ms. Irina Nikolaeva (written back in 2017)
Last 10 years I was living in big cities.
At that time I moved from a small town in Belarus thinking that I need to live in a city with more people and more opportunities.
I started from St. Petersburg. After 5 years in the cultural capital of Russia, I decided that 5 million people is not enough for me and moved to Moscow. But last year everything changed.
I came to Batumi for the holidays, without a back ticket, thinking that it would be only for 2 weeks or 1-month maximum, but I couldn’t leave this place. There are some reasons why.
Batumi Real Estate Crypto Investment
The cost of life. I’m a freelancer. Last year I was working remotely from Moscow. In a month I earn about 1000$. My rented room costed 350$ per month (and it was a cheap price for Moscow), the rest of money I spent on food, transport, health and beauty stuff etc. So in the end of the month I always had only 10$ to buy something to eat. That was really nervous to count each coin choosing what I can buy for food.
Life in…
Outer Walls from AAC Blocks + Installing Bearing Beams
| Home Remodeling | 6 seen
As Summer of 2017 is approaching really fast, and I still have so many not post processed images from home remodeling works performed during Summer 206 in Adobe Lightroom library, I decide to extend articles and feature more info in fewer articles.
In today's article I'm sharing a two day construction works performed at the start of September 2016. In day one I continued to construct walls from aerated concrete blocks, and in fact continued to install new rows in the day two + we finally installed two bearing beams, and it's just a matter of time and glue hardening to finish construction works for the so called "pump room" and start thinking of how to get water supply inside the house from the bore hole we made at the start of Summer (June 2016).
As Summer is approaching to the end, we have already bought our return tickets back to the Tbilisi - we should keep moving really fast. Unfortunately for the most of the leftover works I was left completely alone. It was stressful, but it was worth of it.
Installing aac blocks
It took me about two weeks to prepare this part of the…