Another Fun Weekend: Round1, Tea at The Drake Hotel, & Road Side Antiquing

On November 14th, I joined the Chicago community for afternoon tea at The Drake Hotel with Lauren and Hailee. I get invited to go to their fancy tea meets at The Drake (as well as at Russian Tea Time and The Palmer House), but haven't gone until now and so I was really excited to make one more trip to Chicago before winter sets in. We stayed at Helen's place over the weekend, but couldn't hang out due to her having to work and prepare for her trip for Taiwan. Hopefully she'll be able to take my suggestion to visit Alice is Coming in Teipei to make up for missing out on the fancy tea meet with us.

Friday night, we did the most touristy thing ever and went to Portillo's, and then we HAD to go to Round1 because Lauren had never been there before. For the unfamiliar: Round1 is an awesome entertainment chain featuring Japanese arcade games, karaoke rooms, and bowling alley; they unfortunately don't have DDR or Para-Para-Paradise at our state's location, but they do have purakura machines which never fail to make me laugh and have unrealistic beauty expectations.

Aw. I'm sorry it's blurry. Let's just pretend it's an instagram filter. Yeah.

And because we're a bunch of weeaboos, we also had to stop at Too Cool, a chain selling relatively overpriced anime and kawaii mascot goods. I've been to a few in our state, but so far, this one (at Stratford Square Mall) has the best inventory; there was so much stuff to look at, but very little time to shop. I didn't want to leave empty handed and got a set of Rilakkuma stickers and a Rilakkuma button for a friend's stocking stuffer. 

The way of the Kuma

You can't have a Japanese arcade without UFO machines! Hailee snagged a Korilakkuma plush and I got a Hello Cammy plush (Sanrio+Street Fighter collaboration) on my second try. Unfortunately, even with our help, Lauren went home without a plush friend (there was a Rilakkuma she wanted, but the guy after us got it instead  ಥ_ಥ ). I guess it means we'll have to go back! 

On Saturday, we got dolled up to go to The Drake and had met up with our friend Kim in front of Union. I rarely take cabs in a city because they're so expensive, but we didn't want to take another 30 min trip (via CTA) just to get to our final destination (probably not a good idea to take city transit while in lolita anyway). I always forget how crazy cab drivers are on the road. I asked him to drop us off at Water Tower place where we briefly checked out the American Girl Place (I've honestly never been before) and intended to go next door to Lush, but it was hella crazy and packed in there and we decided to stop by after tea, hoping that foot traffic would die down then. After returning my clothes at Uniqlo and visiting Ghirardelli's (which was also packed), we realized that we had taken the wrong turn, but somehow made it to The Drake before most of the other guests have arrived. Our hostess handed out hand-written thank you notes to each guest.

The Drake was absolutely gorgeous, but like a convention center, the fancy lighting made our pictures look like garbage which really sucked because you could have a photo-op in just about any where in the vicinity - and with this in mind, I apologize for the lack of photos! It was so lovely seeing new and familiar faces and everyone decked out in their finest - even the boyfriends looked sharp! There were two weddings going on at the hotel, but even then, without meaning to, the lolitas somehow took attention away from the newly wedded! 

We had about 30 or so people who attended and we had to break up everyone in groups. At first, I was feeling a little odd about sitting in a table away from the main group, but quickly found myself satisfied for not having to squish in a booth of petticoats. It was also nice to be seated in our own bubble because it made it easy for everyone to mingle after eating and being away from a few bridal/baby showers going on. Our time block was a little late, but we were able to catch the live harpist. 

I knew that ordering alcoholic beverages was an optional part of our RSVP, but I had just heard about pre-ordering tea blends, and so I don't know what the other tables got, however, our table of eight had two sets of the Big Ben English breakfast tea, 7 Citrus Oolong, and Tropical Garden. 

Top: mini lemon poppyseed loaves, red velvet macarons, lemon petit fors
Middle: egg salad, cucumber & tomato on white bread, lobster & shrimp salad on a brioche bun
Bottom: goat cheese & pomegranate mini quiche, smoked salmon-herb crème fresh & arugula, English scones

The tea service was lovely. It seemed as if the service was well timed for us to be allowed to eat in peace and receive drink refills. The price is a bit steep, but what made up for it was the quality of the food, atmosphere, and service, and that they offer food refills, but I was already loaded with carbs to ask for another bite; I honestly didn't feel hungry again until we got back to the suburbs at 9pm. 

Naturally, after the meal, we took a lot of photos.  

Strangely enough, the bathrooms have wonderful lighting.
Jsk, headbow: Angelic Pretty
Blouse: Off-brand
Wristcuffs: Taobao (unknown brand)
Otks, shoes: Bodyline (yes, those are super frilly socks! Not bloomers!)
Necklace: Payless
Purse (lol, y u open?): Evil Live via Lolita Collective
Wig: Lockshop via Lolita Collective

Once again, I apologize for the lack of photos. I'm afraid I don't feel terribly comfortable sharing photos that don't belong to me. Looks like I'll have to get myself a new camera in the near future 

(◕‿-)

Lush was still crowded as it was in the day, but we still made it a point to stop inside and get some Christmas shopping taken cared of. I didn't feel like buying anything in particular and I think that I'm usually like that when I go there because there are so many products to try and I just want to get them all! Does anyone else have this issue too?
After we finally got back to Helen's, we ordered Lou Malnati's to go with some wine I got for Hailee (she had turned 21 recently).  The bottle is called Freak Show and while it's really bitter at first, it does have some lovely notes afterwards. I honestly bought it because the bottle was too cool not to get, and I thought it would make up for missing on their performances at the local Rocky Horror Picture Show - which was circus themed! 

We could have stayed longer on Sunday, but had a lot of errands to do once we got home, however, we still wanted to do one more fun thing before we did and ended up pulling into an antique mall just off the high way. I'm so glad we did because I've always passed by the place every time I go up to Chicago-land and it's got some amazing stuff. 

Like this cat pitcher!
For more photos, check my instagram page.

Another wonderful weekend gone by. With winter coming into view, it'll be a while until I can visit my sister community, but I can't be sad too long with winter lolita day coming up! As far as I know, we're going to move our meetup for Sunday (instead of the usual first Saturday) and make holiday cards. What are you winter lolita day plans? 

Thanks for reading! I hope you have a good rest of your day!