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Borjomi Cafe 1+2
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 The bottom line Although the prices here are about…
Motsameta Monastery near Kutaisi in Georgia
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…
Simple Aspic (Meat Jelly, Kholodets) Recipe
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…
Gelati Monastery in Georgia
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…
How To Make Floating Banana Photo Trick (Photoshop / Lightroom)
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…
Restaurant Dzveli Gelati near Motsameta
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…
Masterclass in Asian Cuisine
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…
Restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi
Restaurant Sarackela is located in Tbilisi on A.Tsereteli Avenue 72, it serves both European and Georgian cuisine, and has one of the most passionate chefs in the town - Natalia Chivileva. One of the nice features this restaurant offers - are master classes for kids and adults on Sundays. This is the reason I got to this place actually, I took a master class of preparing Asian food at start of November 2015. Restaurant Sareckela in…
Prometheus Cave near Kutaisi (Georgia)
Prometheus cave is one of the interesting places I have visited lately in Georgia. In fact that's the second cave I have visited here. The first one is called Sataplia Cave. In case you are into caves and speleology I recommend to visit both of them. Prometheus cave is located some 20km from Kutaisi in village Kumistavi (Tskaltubo Municipality), and if you are arriving to this lovely city - I can only recommend include…
Painting Floor - Adding Base Layer of Paint
After we cleaned up our space from junk, I painted walls and ceilings in white using just a water based paint. Both our future temporary bedroom and kitchen started look decent. Then my father helped me with electrical wiring and installed a few new power outlets. Now was the right time for painting floors. I started with our bedroom. Bought the most cheapest paint available on market (brown) and started to paint. I was hoping that for…
My Outdoor Working Place During Last Summer (2015)
Owning an old rural house is nice, and it's even nicer if you can both live and work from there. Since I'm into a thing called a digital nomad (place doesn't matter as long as there is an internet connection), during last summer I had setup my working place in different corners both inside and outside of our country house. I remember how back in 2014 we used Turtle lake for our working place in Tbilisi. Prior of having a basic outdoor…
Replacing Electrical Wiring and Installing Outlets
On June 25th electricity was connected to our old rural house, and that was the next big issue to fix soon. The old electrical wiring was done like some 30-40 years ago and it just wasn't safe. Luckily I'm familiar with the best electrician, and he is my dad. So I called him and asked for both advice and assistance. Dad seemed excited and soon he was on site, with a lot of wires, cables, screwdrivers, different unknown for me electrical…
Homemade Noodles in Spicy Sauce
November started with a huge goal - not to spend a tetri eating outside, instead we decided to cook good food at home. Today I will show how to prepare a really fresh egg pasta noodles in spicy sauce. I really love to make noodle pasta by my own - and actually it's very easy, thus a hand strength is required if you are not using some dough mixer machine. My recipe for noodle pasta is simple - one egg for every 100 grams flour.…
Abandoned Armenian Church in Tbilisi (Surb Nshan / St. Nikoghayos)
Tbilisi never ends to surprise (at least me). I thought I'm quite familiar with all the places in Tbilisi's Old Town, but turned out - I was wrong. It was a Halloween eve and we decided to head to Shardeni (Tbilisi Old Town) to photograph some Halloween pictures. Prior to that we went to lovely noodles place called Fire Wok on Shalva Dadiani street, and then just to randomize our route we decided to take a slight right turn on Lermontovs street…
Estia Handmade Art Boutique Shop & Masterclasses in Tbilisi
It was a late October evening (It actually happened on Halloween night) when after having a delicious noodles at Fire Wok we decided to take some other route for heading into Tbilisi's Old Town. And suddenly on Lerrmontov street 3 we noticed a small boutique shop with interesting name - Estia, at first I thought maybe it's somehow related to Estonia. The sign at outdoors informed they serve a coffee here as well. You can't buy…
Our First Veggie Garden: Planting Plants in Boxes
What would be a real country house without a garden? Right it would be a garden less country house. Although we have some old apple orchard and a few cherry trees there was one thing missing - some small veggie garden for our needs. There was one another major obstacle we didn't have any water supply at our rural country house. Read more: Home Remodeling - How It All Starts So we opted for a small veggie garden to be planted…
The Tiger Lillies Concert Review in Tbilisi
The Tiger Lillies performed on Tbilisi Concert Hall on November 8, 2015. I must admit I had no clue what this band is all about, but had heard that The Tiger Lillies are must have. And I'm glad I agreed to visit their show in Tbilisi. This was the second show in a row (previous one was Diana Krall's concert at the end of October 2015) I visited in Tbilisi concert hall. First surprise arrived when we noticed that our seats was just behind…
How to Patch and Plaster Walls in Your Old Rural House
It's one of the construction works I really enjoy - to patch and plaster walls - it doesn't requires a lot of skills and it's a really cheap way to get things done fast. Today I will show you how I patched our rural country house's kitchen walls with a plaster mix for less than $10. Prior to that I removed all the junk from the room (kitchen) and applied a base paint both for walls and ceilings. Read: Removing Junk And Adding First Layer…
Shaurma Club on Tamar Mephe Street (Tbilisi)
Shaurma club on Tamar Mephe street in Tbilisi is among one of the best street food places I have tried in Tbilisi and Georgia. They offer really tasty shaurma's, kabab's and they even have a salad bar. They obey all sanitary norms (work in gloves at least) and the prices are really budget friendly. If you enjoy street food and love shaurma's you will definitely enjoy Shaurma Club on Tamar Mephe in Tbilisi. Frankly speaking I have…
Abandoned Airfield Near P104 (Jaunpils-Tukums) Road (Latvia)
As I stated in my previous post about beautiful poppy fields near P104 Jaunipils - Tukums road in Latvia, there is a hidden treasure inside those lovely fields - an abandoned airfield. I doubt it has been used for any military means, more for agriculture (field spraying from a biplane). So I headed in and here is what I got: Abandoned airfield near Tukums The same concrete plates for runaway structure as seen in…
Riga Central Market
Riga Central Market as I believe is among of of the top Riga attractions a tourist might want to visit and see. First opened to public in 1930, with main structures of the market built by reusing old German Zeppelin hangars, it now has become Europe's largest market and bazaar. There are not many markets from which I have seen I could compare this one. The closest I can compare is La Boqueria market in Barcelona, Spain. …
Beautiful Poppy Field Near P104 (Jaunpils-Tukums) Road (Latvia)
Some might think what's so special with those poppy fields in some place called near P104 road in Latvia, and I might reply - probably there is nothing special, but since we used this bypass road to get to Riga all the Summer along, we just noticed them every time we drove past this district. Now I took those images on June 26th and today being back in Tbilisi I tried to locate this place on map, unfortunately I couldn't find an…
First Summer Solstice in Our New (Old) House
Last year we celebrated Summer Solstice on our apartments balcony in Tbilisi, this year we did it the right way. After I tried out how it's to move grass with a scythe, then with a trimmer and finally hiring a professional grass mover we started to repair our recent acquisition, after room and kitchen was cleaned out ouf junk and some paint job was applied both to walls and ceilings we did a test with a first garden party in order to…
Ēdole Castle and Emila Market with 17 Cheeses and Crayfish
Ēdole Castle is a Gothic Revival castle situated on the banks of Ēdole Lake, Ēdole parish, in the historical region of Courland, western Latvia. I had an opportunity to visit Ēdole castle and taste some of the 17 cheeses few days before Summer Solstice Līgo was held (back n 2015). During my visit a fair called Emīla market (Emīla tirgus) took action. Famous Latvian film Emīla nedarbi was filmed here in…