Sunday Oct 27th Franklin Institute, then Prince Tea House

Museum Fun ❀🙧

  I did so much running around on Sunday, I'm still tired. My cousin and her kids were visiting for Halloween weekend so we were out doing family things for like three days. One of the last things was visiting the franklin institute!

They were doing a few Halloween specific activities (mainly for kids) but it was fun and the usual science exhibits were really interesting.

Me messing around with a synthesizer.

One really cool exhibit, Amazing Machine, was about complex machines and showed the inside of an antique singer sewing machine! Even cooler, the had Maillardet's automaton, the Draughtsman-Writer! Σ(°ロ°)!!

Maillardet's automaton at the Franklin Institute.webm, creative commons, via Wikimedia Commons

Theodore Lane (1800 - 1828), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Automaton Exhibition at Gothic Hall in 1826.

It originally had an outfit on, but it's really old and has been through a fire, so now the brass body frame is exposed. They have the automaton displayed with the clockwork exposed from the back (visible through glass).

Getting Tea ❀🙧

 Here are some detail photos of the outfit I wore all Sunday. I coordinated it to twin w/ my homie. If my hair looks blue instead of purple, it's because it is. I refreshed my hair color wrong.

.☙🕁♤ 𝕆𝕦𝕥𝕗𝕚𝕥 ♤🕁❧.

Hat ◦ Spirit Halloween

Blouse ◦ Miho Matsuda

Pants ◦ Peace Now

Legwear ◦ H Naoto Gouk

Footwear ◦ Offbrand

Misc ◦ Rosary necklace is from a flea market. Other chains are offbrand.

.☙🕁♤🕁❧.

❀Prince Tea House❀

  I've been here once before with one of my other friends and she ordered these fried squid tails, and they were SO GOOD. So I ordered them again Sunday. I don't know if squid even have tails, but they're so yummy~! The batter was crispy, and the squid itself was savory and just the right amount of chewy.

  The sauce it came with is kind of spicy and I kind of don't like spicy stuff, but they don't even need sauce so whatever. I shared them with my friend.

Squid Tails

  For dessert, I ordered a "Mille Feuille", and she ordered this Brown Sugar Boba Mille Crepes. Both were shared. Tbh I looked up Mille Feuille on Wikipedia and it showed me a totally different pastry so idk what's going on here.

  This one here is made of puff pastry filled with cream, but not in a cakey format at all. I'm pretty sure it was fried or something. Still yummy though! It came served with some fruits (berries, honeydew, mango) and topped with some mint and powdered sugar.

Mille Feuille

  The boba Mille Crepes was DELICIOUS! Next time I come here, I'm ordering one for myself. There was brûléed sugar on top and the cream drizzled over is salted milk foam, both of these together kind of remind me of the Gong Cha crème brûlée brown sugar milk tea. (also very good, go try it!) The tapioca pearls and milk foam came in separate cups so the cake wouldn't go soggy, so you get to put it on top yourself which is pretty good for content.

Also the crepe cake was super pretty, like omg look at it.

Brown Sugar Boba Mille Crepes Cake

  Now it's time to write about the tea! We got two different pots of tea. Thé des Songes White Tea and Thé des Sources Green Tea. Going off the digital menu pictures and the fact that only one store consistently results when I tried looking up those varieties on google and steepster, I'm like 70% sure these two teas are from French tea house, Palais des Thés.

  They look good quality and fancy, so it makes sense for a professional business to buy from them. Honestly I might buy some loose leaf from them if I come across some extra money, but for now I'll drink it when I go to Prince.

  We ordered the Thé des Songes first, and It smelled absolutely delightful! Its a blend of white tea, rose, orange blossom, and berries. I fell in love at first sip <3. White tea makes a soft base for the floral flavors to pull through. I found the berry flavor to be pretty light, but that's probably for the best, because fruits tend to overtake other flavors.

I'd describe it as floral, elegant, light, and slightly perfumey.

Thé des Songes

  Next came the Thé des Sources. This blend consists of green tea, mint, rose and cornflower petals, bergamot, and a little bit of lemon. This was was nice, but I didn't like it as much as the first tea. The Des Songes stood out more to me and this one was more plain. It's a little similar to earl gray, and while I do really like earl gray, its what I always drink, so the Des Sources didn't stand out. The mint wasn't a main line flavor, it presented more as a cooling effect which was really nice and complemented well.

  I wound up trying it with a few scoops of sugar and some of that salted milk foam from the crepe cake.

Thé des Sources

  When we were finished, we walked around china town for a little bit and then took some pics outside the mall. It was getting a little late by that point, so we only had a small amount of mall time.

Pics courtesy of my homie @9.allomi

.☙🕁♤🕁❧.