Blog Archive: November 2015
An ex-pat living in Georgia since 2011, I trade stocks, take photographs, work out at the gym, and many more. Here I write about travel, finance, and other things that might interest me.
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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…
Water Reflections on Lisi Lake
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)
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…
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 from a meat stock or consommé. Non-…
Third Traffic Spike: More than 7,500 Daily Users
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…
How to add MailChimp Signup Form for Drupal
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…
Postcards from Tbilisi
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…
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 in…
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…
October 2015 Blog Traffic and Income Report 39,928 Users / $549.49
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…
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 Tbilisi…
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 Prometheus cave in your…
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…