Carpe Diem Cafe Bar in Tbilisi

18 March, 2017 | Restaurant reviews | 24 seen

Carpe Diem is a cozy cafe bar in Tbilisi, located between Narikala fortress and Shardeni. Here at Carpe Diem you can try tasty home made burgers and have a herbal tea in pot. 

Because of this place been located in a steep uphill between Narikala fortress and Old Town, I have visited this place just twice so far, both of the times after climbing down from the fortress. The good news, this cafe bar have been in business for years, and it means just one - it's a good place. 

Carpe Diem is one of the rare places in Tbilisi, where  smoking inside is not allowed.

Carpe Diem in Tbilisi

Carpie Diem in Tbilisi is located next to the Armenian Apostolic church. Had to make a panoramic photo, to frame both places in one photo. 

Interior at Carpe Diem

Ground Milling With A Tiller

17 March, 2017 | Home Remodeling | 6 seen

During the Summer of 2016 we met some new faces, and so back in July we met with a neighbor (Ok, he is actually living some 10 km from our rural house) with a tractor with tiller - I started to ask about the device, would it be possible to mill ground at our place, as we are really into growing some veggies not only in a wooden boxes, but would love to grow something in the soil. 

It was at the end of the September, when I got a call from the neighbor and he asked - OK, I will be at your place tomorrow with a tractor. I thought, cool, let's do it. And so did in couple of hours neighbor with a tractor an tiller did the magic - the ground was milled. 

Tractor with a tiller

With time I'm planing to buy some tractor with a tiller and grass mowing functionality, but for now this was a win-win deal. Sometimes its cheaper to rent.

Ground milling process

After milling the soil is soft as a powder

New garden is ready

Noe it's time to seed in something, more on that in upcoming blog posts.

Former Archaeological Museum Building in Tbilisi

16 March, 2017 | Tourism objects | 257 seen

Former Archeological Museum Building in Tbilisi is a great example of the Soviet architecture in Georgia.

I had a chance to discover this place and explore surrounding area, first time in February 2017, thanks to the Tbilisi Soviet Architecure tours organized by Brutal Tours: See: Brutal Tours - Explore Soviet Georgian Architecture in Tbilisi

​The museum was established in 1988 by the well-known Georgian archeologist, head of the Tbilisi archeological expedition, Rostom Abramishvili (1924-1996). The museum housed monuments, discovered by the archeological excavations in Tbilisi. The chronological frames of the collections were from the V c. B.C. up to the feudal times. In the museum was kept the earliest in the world samples of tinned bronze objects from the Delisi (Tbilisi district) dwelling, dated as 4.000 years old; bronze buckle inlayed with silver decorated with horse rider image; inventory of the Treli royal burials (XII-VIII-VII c.c. B.C.)

Museum is not operational in 2017

Former Archeological Museum Building in Tbilisi

This place was a great discovery to me, I enjoyed it a…

Autumn in Latvia

15 March, 2017 | | 7 seen

In today's Piece of Life photo series a story from Autumn 2016 - when almost all major planned home remodeling works for this Summer were finished, in a dank September morning we decided to catch a morning mist by visiting some nearby objects.

Road in mist

I love mist photography, in fact i love to capture mist in the early mornings in our backyard, see: Beautiful morning mist and Another morning, another beautiful mist

Crop fields in Autumn

They look even more beautiful in Summer, see: Summer in Latvia

Water reflections

One of the ways to make your photography more interesting is by shooting water and water reflections, see: Water Reflections on Lisi Lake

Road in mist

These are the forests we went gathering mushrooms this Summer, see Deep in the Forest

House in mist

Not ours, but our neighboring Berghof manor

Kazdanga mill lake in Autumn

See: Kazdanga Mill Lake And Its Surroundings

Brutal Tours - Explore Soviet Georgian Architecture in Tbilisi

14 March, 2017 | 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

13 March, 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

13 March, 2017 | 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

12 March, 2017 | 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

11 March, 2017 | 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

10 March, 2017 | 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

9 March, 2017 | 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

8 March, 2017 | 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

7 March, 2017 | 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

5 March, 2017 | 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

4 March, 2017 | 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…