Blog Archive: July 2017
Okatse Canyon - Emerald - Green Journey in Georgia
| Tourism objects | 20 seen
Tourist destinations can vary from fancy shops and restaurants to alienated deserts and unknown highways that may lead nowhere. Being a tourist equals to explorer’s profession with a blank map under one’s arm and a pocketful of desired adventures. Georgia - the county that has gained a great popularity among tourists reveals its secrets year by year with an endless trust and kindheartedness. Places once sacred and sacramental hidden under the tree crowns shyly become the prior tourist destinations. The funny fact is that the spirit of adventurism pumps up foreigners to examine the far-away and little-known lands of inscrutable Saqartvelo that sinks into one’s soul and dwells in its matter.
Mountainous country welcomes its friends and guests with spiky mountains and green hills, expands its vast territory to the fields lined with flowers. The range of natural sights seems to be limitless and at some places even abnormal and enchanting. The country embraced with mountains shows one ore of its peculiarities in the face of canyons that fascinates not only the tourists but the locals as well. One of the reason why Georgians are characterized as very proud people takes its…
Rafting in Georgia - The Black and White Beauty - Aragvi
| Outdoor Activities | 17 seen
According to the accepted standards Georgia is associated with high and spiky mountains that plough the skies and try to reach the sun with their lofty heads. The landscape creates the feeling of the high-rise sky that seems to be somewhere far-far away. It is also one of the reasons why even during the summertime it gets darker almost at eight o’clock in the evening. Mountains, without any doubt, occupy the honorable first place in the beauty contest of Georgia’s natural peculiarities. Bewildered by the beauty of the scenery many people forget about another crucial element of Georgian nature and the shadowed beauty of rivers is going to be the topic of my following discussion.
Swift and roaring rivers penetrate both eastern and western parts of Georgia that had always been the source of life beginning from the early signs of civilization. Rivers are wild, bear an unprecedented character, and this fact makes them not easy to conquer.
Book a rafting tour in Georgia
Aragvi – one of the most beloved rivers of the rafters has shown its obstinate temper. Extreme sport lovers confess that Aragvi wins heart…
Mtirala National Park or The Green Canvas of the Crying Mountain
| Living in Georgia | 16 seen
We are used to seeing stunning nature beauty and emerald green forests on documentaries and National Geographic Channel as if keeping in mind that deep forests and unknown places must be thousands kilometers away from civilization. Somehow urbanization has created a big wall that separates humans from the peacefulness of big and rough mountains creating an unattainable representation of wild nature. Georgia, as always, has made its mark in terms of providing perfect conditions for those who are spoiling for natural seclusion.
Mtirala National Park has always attracted lots of tourists starting from the beginning of the 20th century and during the Soviet Era it was called the ‘bladder if the Union’ due to it was acknowledged as the most humid place all over the gigantic territory of the former Republic.
You get the vibes of adventure when you get to the National Park and wander in the subtropical jungles of Mtirala Mountain vicinity. You can find various natural treasures in the representation of numerous rivers, waterfalls, charming bridges and gorges. Though, there is no threat of being chased by a predator and you do not…
Camping in Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park
| Living in Georgia | 36 seen
Mountains mesmerize. Mountains make you stronger. Mountains are irreplaceable. Georgia’s natural treasure in the face of Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park represents a big portion of protected territories in the country.
The area is under government’s protection and the administrative center altogether with guides, tour operators, and rangers create all conditions for those whose choice falls upon extreme camping in the woods. If you plan going to Borjomi-Kharagauli Park you had better be prepared both physically and mentally as long as you have to walk a lot and in some places – no exaggerating, you are just climbing up the mountain, like a hobbit but, please, don’t get scared as long as this is just a warning!
Before going to Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park it is better to plan your trip thoughtfully.
Borjomi
It is highly recommended to spend a night or two in the city of Borjomi in order to look for attractions and drink mineral medicinal water. Analyze what the weather is going to be and only then think of spending a night or two in the Park itself. If the forecast shows…
Chania Bus Station
| Railway / Bus / Ferry | 43 seen
There is a cheap and pretty convenient way to travel to the nearby beaches and more distant routes in Crete from Chania town. Your journey will start at Chania bus station.
In fact there is a bus service to/from Chania airport, with ticket price just about EUR 2 per person. The bus transport in Chania is cheap. I remember, once I paid about EUR 40 for a one way trip from an airport in Norway to the Oslo city center (see: Moss Airport, Rygge, Norway). Buses in Chania are cheap.
We spent one night in Chania (see: Lithinon Studio Apartment in Chania Review), but for next couple of days decided to locate to Agia Marina beach (we already booked a hotel there), so it was just a matter of getting there. Though I decided better to take a taxi from here, as it would be much easier to find our next hotel with taxi driver, and not trying to guess which is our stop by using bus. By the way for such taxi trip we paid just EUR 14 (fixed price to Agia Marina from Chania)
Chania Bus station
See complete bus routes and timetables at e-ktel.com website
The use of buses…
About Organic Food in Tbilisi and Georgia
| Living in Georgia | 66 seen
Caucasian region is the motherland of various dishes that include meat. Georgians even say that real men must eat meat at least once a day as if only meat nourishes body with all the needed vitamins and organic elements. It may be just a gossip but you can find it yourself by just looking through the menus of most Georgian restaurants.
Despite being deep meat lovers Georgians cook an abundance of different vegetable dishes, make so called ‘kompot’ (stewed fruit drink), cook special sauces and astonish travelers with always full of fresh products baskets in the shops and markets.
Lots of tourists do not trust the place known as ‘bazaar’ situated near Station Square Metro because it looks differently from clean and cozy markets in their motherland.
Tbilisi Dezerteer bazaar
Bazaar is the largest place where merchants sell different kinds of fruit and vegetables, fragrant greens, savory spices, Georgian cheese, meet in all its possible variations, and sometimes even livestock. When you enter the open space you can see people selling products in any kind of weather. Any people say…
Why I Rushed to Buy Ripple (XRP) Cryptocurrency at $0.19
| Crypto | 22 seen
I've been a lot into crypto currencies lately, in fact it's not even a full month passed since I've started my investment adventures into crypto currencies.
For crypto investments I've a verified coinbase.com account and right now coinbase offers to buy just following three crypto currencies by VISA card - bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin, unfortunately there is no support yet for ripple. To buy XRP at coinbase you will need at first buy BTC, then exchange it on Poloniex.com or some other exchange. Although seems there are some exchanges that offer to buy XRP directly, as I haven't tested them out, I cannot say for sure.
Remember your capital is at risk, never invest capital you cannot afford to loose!
I've bought all three currencies available now on coinbase this month, and frankly speaking I've a little clue what's behind scenes, I'm just into the rush for the next big thing, though at one time from my short crypto investor carrier I've lost more than 50% in total value. That should be a bold warning for you - crypto currencies are volatile. So don't take further…
Lithinon Studio Apartment in Chania Review
| Hotel reviews | 15 seen
Situated 100 m from Chania Old Venetian Harbour in Chania Town, this air-conditioned apartment features a terrace. The apartment is 100 m from Mosque of Kioutsouk Hassan. Free WiFi is provided .
We booked this apartment in Chania for a one night stay at the start of June 2017.
As we hadn't yet booked a rental car in Crete, we took a public bus from Chania airport to get to the city center and then using Google Maps navigation went some 10minutes from Chania coach station to find this place. Located on pretty silent Lithinon street, this place still is just a block away from lively Chania harbor, see: Postcards from Chania
Lithinon street in Chania
There is a dining area and a kitchen equipped with dishwasher. A flat-screen TV is offered. Free private parking is also available at this apartment.
Lithinon Studio apartment in Chania
For dinner we went our tonight and spent lovely time at Taverna En Plo in Chania
Outdoor yard at Lithinon studios
Archaeological Museum of Chania is 200 m from Lithinon Studio With Yard, while Municipal Art Gallery of Chania is 200 m away.…
Taverna En Plo in Chania
| Restaurant reviews | 59 seen
This was a very long and tiring day, in the morning we left Tbilisi to travel to Athens, spent whole day there, and in the evening fled to Chania, Crete, after we checked in at out apartment in Chania, I took a tripod and we made a lovely evening photo walk.
Our evening ended at this nice Greek tavern - En Plo on Portou street 20.
En Plo seems is a quite popular tourist place, we hardly managed to get a free table here once we get one we spent a good time of waiting our order to be taken.
En Plo tavern in Chania, Crete
This place offers a kind of typical Greek menu (Cretan) - wide variety of grilled meats and so on. We decided to stick with a platter for two for about EUR 35.
Because of a lot of people tonight, we had to wait about an hour for our meal to be served, though cokes and other drinks were served almost instantly.
Grilled meat plate at En Plo
A oot of variety of meet under potatoes there, grilled sausages, steaks and so on. Tasty. Probably served in a touristic way, but still tasty and affordable.
After our meal we were offered free ouzo drinks, we kindly rejected by…
CoinLend.org Review - Automating Cryptocurrency Lending Free Bot Investor
| Crypto | 27 seen
A couple of weeks ago I purchased first crypto coins at coinbase.com, about a week ago I decided to invest them on Poloniex.com, today I decided to use bot-investor to manage my crypto investments, I choose CoinLend.org
The service seems is quite new and is built by German enthusiasts / crypto investors, a pretty good introduction post about this service is provided here: Coinlend.org - The Lending-Bot for Poloniex & Bitfinex
Remember your capital is at risk, never invest capital you cannot afford to loose!
About CoinLend.orgWe are currently a small team of cryptocurrency investors and we are lending out our coins for years now. Initially we started lending manually on the exchanges, but soon noticed how cumbersome it is to monitor and renew your loans all the time. That's why we created Coinlend.org. At first only for ourselves, but as we noticed that the fully automated lending is much more profitable than the manual lending, we now made it publicly available for free, so everyone can benefit from it.
Opening account at CoinLend.org took me less than a minute, setting up the robot took another…
Launching Simple AMP Version for Drupal Website
| Drupal Development | 7 seen
I might be late to the party of implementing AMP for my Drupal powered website, as AMP have been around for a while already, it was just tonight I finally managed to implement and validate AMP for this blog.
In this article I'll share some of my notes on how to implement AMP for Drupal, compare load times before and after and of course will touch a topic of about possible SEO gains (though, seems that AMP is not a ranking factor yet)
Here is the short version about what's AMP:
The AMP Project is an open-source initiative aiming to make the web better for all. The project enables the creation of websites and ads that are consistently fast, beautiful and high-performing across devices and distribution platforms. Learn more: https://www.ampproject.org/
I should admit, that implementing AMP for Drupal was kind of challenging and in total took me more than8 months to get first validated results. I started working on Drupal AMP version at the end of 2016, spent some good time learning how to use composer and even started using Drush.
There is a great module for Drupal - Accelerated Mobile…
About Night Life in Tbilisi
| Travel guides | 7 seen
Any city looks different when the night falls and the muffled lights are sparkling in the yellow rays of lampions. Level of intimacy is at its highest and you just have to dissolve into the dark.
Tbilisi is extremely beautiful at night as all its main attractions’ virtues are highlighted by the strong bright projectors. It really looks like a phantom city with its old castles and ancient churches. Of course I am talking about the city-center and not its outskirts or uptown as the main beauty is concentrated in the heart of the city that embraces Liberty Square, Rustaveli and Marjanishvili Avenues.
When coming to Tbilisi the first rule you should remember is that the gurgling night-life with lots of people in the streets is not a part of Georgian reality as all the locals prefer to stay at home or in the yards and play backgammon and drink beer while talking about football. Night can radically change one’s opinions and desires. Something miraculous happens out there in Tbilisi – suddenly you feel free from the system and as if the second wind opens - you want to live, learn, and even create.
It was mentioned many…
Postcards from Chania
| | 11 seen
At the start of June, 2017 we traveled for a 3 week leisure trip to the island of Crete, Greece, and our first stop was lovely coastal town Chania. We spent a lovely night discovering local Cretan cuisine and I photographed a lot nightly scene, equipped with a tripod and long exposures, lovely.
That said - postcards from Chania!
Chania lighthouse
Lively Chania promenade with lots of cafeterias
About 18 months ago we visited the so called Italian Riviera - Portofino, see: Portofino - picturesque harbor village in Italian Riviera, now we can draw parallels with both coastal town - truly amazing for romantic escape.
Street vendors in Chania
Ah, those lovely ghost long exposures.
A bench
Just love this long exposure.
the girl and the lighthouse
Amazing, beautiful and truly inspiring. Chania we love you!
Invest in Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum and other) Peer to Peer Lending - Poloniex.com
| Crypto | 22 seen
Seems that crypto currencies are a hot thing on this blog during this Summer, though it was just recent, not even a month ago, when I decided to diversify my investment portfolio and allocate up to 5% space in it for crypto currency investments (buy and hold here).
From my initial investments in crypto at the start of July (see: First Investment In Crypto Currencies - Bought 0.2 ETH for EUR 50) I've lost in value more than -50% in just 2 weeks, see: Crypto currency volatility, lost -54.42% in just two weeks
Now, despite the pretty serious loses here, I still feel pretty optimistic about crypto currency future, and plan to invest there once in a month using dollar average cost approach by the end of 2020.
For about last 6 month I've been investing in a more casual form of peer to peer lending - mintos.com, focusing my investments in Georgian loans. See: Invest in Georgia - Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending - Mintos.com
As I'm already familiar with peer to peer lending concept, and currently in the exploration phase for crypto currency investments, I thought it would be cool - if I could lend out some or all of my…
Crypto currency volatility, lost -54.42% in just two weeks
| Crypto | 16 seen
In the past two weeks, my investments in crypto currencies have lost it's value by -54.42%, that's insane, but here is the thing - I don't care much, as I believe in the long term run they should raise, break even and even grow in value.
My story with crypto currency investment started just about two weeks ago, during a leisure trip to Crete, Greece I decided to allocate a small piece (up to 5%) from my investment portfolio in crypto currencies. Also I decided to use dollar cost averaging approach and constantly buy more coins each month.
After seeing a drop by more than 50% in just two weeks I've started to think to limit crypto currency part in my portfolio to some 2-3% instead of 5%, as such huge volatility actually impacts my overall portfolio performance.
Cryptocurrency volatility
How To Track Your CryptoCurrencies Portfolio Automatically Using Google Spreadsheets
From three crypto coins in my wallet, ether has lost the most, -101,18%, bitcoin - 41.16% and litecoin -35.64%, and that all have happened in just two weeks. Insane!
On…