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Yes Yes Yes is a personal journal of images, places, and things that make the world a better place; collected along the way.

My background is in design photography and the culinary arts.  I’ve worked as a pastry chef in fine dining and spent years in hospitality, designing consumer spaces and experiences across many corners of the world.  That combination has shaped how I understand quality and service.

For me, the best doesn’t automatically mean the most expensive, luxurious, or awarded.  It means authenticity.  It means something being true to itself.  Real quality is unmistakable, whether it’s carefully crafted in the moment or refined by natural selection over thousands of years.  There are many paths to discovery, but excellence has a way of revealing itself when you encounter something genuinely honest.

This way of seeing has been familiar to friends and family for years.  It naturally led to questions: where to eat with an important client, which hotel would be right for a honeymoon, and which neighbourhood is worth exploring.  I spent countless hours putting together restaurant lists and travel itineraries, complete with notes, photos, and routes.  Over time, those requests started coming from friends of friends, and then from clients.

In 2008, I realized a blog would be the most useful place to hold all of this information.  I began cataloguing the places I experienced, guided by the same instinctive filter for what I consider extraordinary.  I’m happily uncompromising.  I’d rather skip a meal than settle for an average one, and I’ll walk ten thousand extra steps for a truly good coffee.  I tend to follow my instincts, sometimes quite literally, and they often lead me to places that surprise even the locals.

In Istanbul, for example, I once followed the smell of garlic for blocks.  It led to a small kebab shop in an alley called Canım Ciğerim.  Later, the hotel desk manager asked in disbelief how I’d found one of the city’s most respected kebab spots in a city of fifteen million people.

Sand and Stars exists to search, discover, and share the people, places, and experiences that give each corner of the world its character.   I’m drawn to businesses and locations with clarity of purpose and a quiet confidence.  They don’t need to be luxurious to be remarkable, though sometimes they are.  Restaurants don’t need star chefs, although some have them.  The focus is never on accolades, but on authenticity, creativity, and design that can transport you; whether that’s a simple wooden bus stop in Kurokawa or the remarkable architecture of Les Cols Hotel near Girona.

This is wandering with intent.

If you come across a place you believe deserves attention, feel free to write to: hello@xxxxxx I’m always happy to discover something new.

Thank you for being here.  I hope you find joy and inspiration along the way.

Ondina