Tues. 08/17/2010 - At HiJong's

So, my old friend whom I met in Paris and also who was the first friend in NY, HiJong kindly put me up at her place for several days until today. She lives in a cute Tudor style house in West Orange, NJ surrounded by gigantic trees. While I was staying there, I totally experience American family life, and a happy one. I was so happy to her happy with a good husband and two adorable boys.

HiJong's House. The neighborhood has many Tudor style houses, but I thought hers is the prettiest.

It still has these great details, like original crystal door knobs from early 20th century when the house was first built.

Sun. 08/15/2010-Lake Hopatcong

Now, I moved out from my apartment, and am staying at HiJong's place in West Orange. Her family has a lake house in Hopatcong and we spent the weekend there. It rained from later morning on Sunday, but it was still nice to get away from the city, TV and Internet and completely enjoy the weekend doing fishing, swimming, boating, cooking and Monopoly! (I totally bankrupted!)

[Lake Hopatcong]

Sat. 08/07/2010 - Brooklyn Flea with Friends

This was my last trip to Brooklyn Flea before I leave. Today I had 4 nice companies with me, Katrina, Kendall, her friend and her dog. Again, the flea was better than ever. But I was busy with my friends, and was lazy with pictures...plus, it's time for me to stop adding anything to my luggages.

I had this pretzel as a quick bite there, this is always so yummy. The portion is perfect and it's so tender and warm. Brooklyn Flea has the best food by far! Tasting all the food is absolutely one of the greatest reason to visit there.

I finally started my camera collection. I am not so an expert on cameras, but I liked this little plastic Kodak camera. And I hope one day, my Olympus PEN which has quite cool vintage look and even my little Samsung can be part of my collection.

Kendall left early, and Katrina and I did some more shopping at the flea. After, we went to our last brunch -Hopefully it was not our last last brunch, but I think it was our last one before I leave. I am so sad-. Since she lives around there, she always brings me a good one. We have simple but comforting food, and the conversation was very inspirational and informative to me as usual with her.

Katrina gave me this book as my farewell gift. She's been collecting these tiny Japanese books about interesting homes and places in Europe. They are quite pricy, so I haven't been really dare to collect them. But she totally contributed one for me as a start. How thoughtful she was. And she particularly picked one about stores in Paris, since I will be in retail business myself. Now, I am sitting at home thinking about all my friends here, and I feel so lucky to get to know them all. We all met from work. If the jobs I had left me all withered at the end, but they gave me these greatest people.

Sat. 07/31/2010 - At Gabi's

I had my farewell party at Gabi's on Saturday. I was already drunk when I needed to take pictures of my friends...but I could take some pictures of Gabi's place, which I really loved. It just so naturally represented her cultural and family heritage. If I collected some of vintage or antique things more in a pseudo collector way -meaning buy the whole collection at once instead of collection objects in a long time period, in a real "collecting" way-, her collections of objects were real. Things she inherited from family and friends and collected from numerous trips to foreign cities (she seriously travels over the world) simply so naturally inhabited in her place.

Gabi lives on Erie Street in Jersey City.

Gabi's Vintage Camera Collection which I envied so much :)

Vintage Phones she got from her parents

Her religious heritage

The vintage trunk she uses as a coffee table. Lucky her, instead of buying from a flea market, she picked this up on the street.

Her ticket collection. She said she has to clean these up, but Kendall and I loved this corner.

Every corner is colored differently. One corner of kitchen in green.

Metropolitan Museum badges. She contributed yellow one for my own collection. Thanks Gabi!

Ready for the farewell party. My vintage suitcases and bottle holders that I got from Brooklyn today looked just right at her place.