Why #ByaheNgKokobears Went to Georgia?

#ByaheNgKokobears sa Georgia

Hello hello Creatives!

I’m back! :) It’s been a while since my last travel blog.

This time, finally after almost 8 years of travel (travel beyond PH Vacation) Kokobear and I finally managed to squeeze time and budget for our supposed annual out of country (OOC) trip and this year we opted to visit Georgia – A Land of Contrasts and Beauty.

Details:

Tip Duration – 9 Days
Airports: Sharjah-Tbilisi – Tbilisi-Sharjah
Package – This is our 3rd Package Trip from Holiday Factory. More of this later on. Oh by the way, this isn’t sponsored.
Flight Duration – 2h 55m (approx 3 hours)
Airline – Air Arabia
Required Documents
- Holiday Factory Package
  - Flight, Hotel, Transfers, Planned Tours & Insurance
  - Passports
  - Emirates ID
  - Cash in USD & GEL
  - Optional – online bank statement (Although they didn’t ask for this)

For this first part, I’d like to share our Arrival activities (Day 1).

Day 1

3 AM – Left home, arrive hotel around 4-4:15 AM

5 AM – Check In, breakfast, goes around the and check our gate

8 AM – Boarding, 8:30 – took off

11:15 AM – Arrived in Tbilisi – this includes Immigration and all.

In the Immigration, they took all the necessary documents. I just gave the full Holiday Factory (HF) document including both of our passports and Emirates ID and the very specific question that was asked by the officer was that, do I have money and how much. So I answered and showed her the cash. After that Kokobear came next and no more questions just took the photo.

12 NN – HF Pick up with Anna came with another 6-7 guests, we will drop first since our hotel is around 20 minutes away from the airport.

1 PM – Arrived in the hotel – Iberia Inn, but they are quite strict when it comes to check in – it has to be at 3pm. So we stored our luggage in the reception area and went out to the adjacent building that has a fast food chicken burger/shawarma etc. – Yum Yum Chicken!

3 PM – Check In, took a nap since we’ve been awake since last night.

6 PM – We walked around the area, bought some groceries, chips, water, tissue etc. and learned our first miscomm ^^ “Parke” – this word we thought of as Parking. But it actually means plastic. We were in the grocery store and the cashier asked, parke? We said parking? No no (since we are tourists, we don’t have a car) hahah but when we ask for the plastic to pack the stuffs that’s when we figure it out. Hello hello another foreign land! Hehe

8 PM – Dinner at Nikala’s Yard

Finally tried the staple Georgian cuisine: Khinkali & Khachapuri. Check out the below video

<Georgian Food – Day 1>

The place is very local, they have live music in the center of the restaurant/bar, an old man who looks like the owner holds a mic and sings. Our server, though not really good at English, was very accommodating and did her best to understand us and to provide an explanation of the food. We had a great meal! Just before leaving, the rain came, so we waited for a while and then started walking back to the hotel. Mid-way to our walk near the police headquarters the rain came back… we had to rush but somehow Georgian rain didn’t fully come. We were a bit wet but thank God our docs are safe.

11 PM – Home, I mean back to the hotel and called it a day. Thank you Lord.

Let’s Go Somewhere | Georgia Day 1 Video – part 1

Georgia Day 1 – Part 2

Georgia Day 1 – Part 3

Why Georgia?

This trip has been long planned since my departure in Infracare. Part of the budget came from my EOS and at the same time, in our 10th year I wanted to travel. Our original plan was either Japan or Jeju but after calculating the expenses and days – its not practical to go to either places from Dubai. It is better that we depart from PH instead. Eventually HF has become the easiest way to plan OOC trips, so here we are in Georgia. But more than the financial and days restrictions, I believed God has called us to Tbilisi. More of this will be shared on the next blog.

#ByaheNgKokobears #BNKsaGeorgia #TheKokobears #Georgia2024

Day 2 coming up! :)