°˖✧✝ The Bear Necessities Meetup ✝✧˖°

Remember in my last post when I mentioned the rent hikes in New York City? Well, even FAO Schwarz, the oldest toy store in the United States, felt the sting of such rent increases and was placed with the burden of closing down their store front once again. I've always wanted to create a toy themed meetup for FAO Schwarz, but never had the time to plan one. Though, when my friend mentioned a bear themed meetup she was planing with another one of our friends, I made the effort of recommending that we include a stop at the famous toy store before they closed.   

Blouse: Alice and the Pirates
JSK: Innocent World
Accessories: Handmade or Off brand

My friend was really excited for the meetup's theme and wanted everyone to participate. Without a doubt, bears are cute, but I felt as though I wouldn't be able to make a bear themed Gothic Lolita outfit. And truthfully, the meetup seemed more geared toward Sweet Lolitas than anything. Ready to sit this one out, my friend insisted that I at least try to come up with an outfit. So instead of an outfit focused around bears, I decided to just add my black teddy bear as an accessory. To further my attempt, I put furry pompoms on top of my head to mimic the look of bear ears.

The main part of the event was afternoon tea at Kings' Carriage House. This was the tea room we wanted to go to during the Death Becomes Her meetup I hosted at the beginning of this year, but we decided on the tea room too late to make reservations. Kings' Carriage turned out to be very nice, with inviting decor and enjoyable savory selections. 

The first two pictures are of the waiting area in Kings' Carriage House.
The third is of the bathroom. I know it's strange to take a picture
of the bathroom, but it was so nice. It was decorated more like a hallway.

On their website, a quote describes the tea room as a "charming cottage house" that's "the equivalent of a country getaway." I would say that the description lives up to the actual tea room. It really looked as if we were in someone's house. On the way to Kings' Carriage, my friend I walked right past it, because it looked so much like a residence than a restaurant. Though, the downside to the homey atmosphere was the small eating areas. There where only nine of us, a moderate size for a group of Lolitas, but there was hardly enough room for us and our petticoats.

I think I enjoyed their savoy choices the best.
The tastiest one wound have to be the Oak Smoked Scottish Salmon Pinwheels.

One of the greatest thing about Kings' Carriage is that they love Lolitas! They were overly accommodating to our needs, and they wanted us to take pictures everywhere. Our waitress even insisted she take all of our pictures for us. It really did turn into a photo shoot, with us taking many pictures inside and out in the front.

They told me to get to the back because I was the tallest.

All of the bears, and alpaca-chan, wanted to take a family photo.

Okay, so I didn't know that the Kuma Kumya and Usakumya pochettes
have magnetic hands. So when it was suggested that we should link
them together, so it'll look like their holding hands,
I had to get the Sweet Lolitas to hold hands too!

After a long time at Kings' Carriage, we headed to FAO Schwarz. The toy store looked a bit plain on the outside, and, from the look of it, I thought we were going in to a regular department store, like Macy's or Lord and Taylor. But I guess they saved all of the wonderment for the inside. Once we stepped inside, we were greeted by a little bakery called Sugar Plumm, which was the first stop into Candyland on the ground floor.

That box of candy is about half the height of my friend!

On the way up to the next level, we were so captivated with how huge one of the display bears was, and thought it would produce some cute pictures for our bear theme. Everyone took a picture with the giant bear but my friend and me. We were both wearing a Gothic outfit, so we wanted to find something a bit... dark. The teddy bear and animal section was at the top of the escalator, so my friend went straight to a friendly black bear.     

For some reason, I was more enticed by the moose.
Are moose "dark"? I don't think so, but I still thought they looked cool.

Including the infant floor on the underground level, FAO Schwarz had four floors! Even though we walked into the large animal section on the second floor, I would say that it only took up about a sixth of the entire levl. There was a section for just about every large toy marking franchise you could think about. What surprised me the most though were the stores within the toy store. Use the fact that they had multiple stores, like Build-A-Bear, to understand how vast FAO Schwarz was.

And of course, FAO Schwarz would be nothing without their famous floor piano.
I wish I had time to play on it. It's been a dream of mine since I was a kid.

They even had Rilakuma goods.
My friend was lucky. Everything was 50% in that section!

We spent a long time exploring FAO Schwarz, but it started to get late. We were there for so long that we missed going to our third stop for the day, the larger storefront for Build-A-Bear, because they closed. But, since there was a Build-A-Bear in FAO Schwarz, we didn't feel too bad for missing it. Some of us decided to part ways at this point, but the rest of us decided to keep the party going and go to Dylan's Candy Bar.

The first floor of Dylan's Candy Bar is a candy store where you can buy prepacked candy, candy but the pound, or merchandise with candy designs. It's seen more as a tourist spot, so the prices were a bit high, and the first floor is always packed with people until closing. The second floor turns into a ice cream shop, eatery, and bar. There's no wait to go to the ice cream shop or bar, but you'll have to put your name on a list to be seated for food due to their limited space upstairs. There are only three booths.

You can't tell from the pictures, but there are real candy pieces in the steps
going upstairs to the second floor! 

Look! The booths are shaped like cupcakes!
We agreed that we'd wait as long as we needed to next time to get the purple cupcake booth.

We only wanted drinks, so we were allowed to walk directly to the bar. Because of our group's size, we couldn't all sit at the bar, and were place at a regular booth next to the bar instead. It wasn't the one of the cupcakes booths, though. My friend bought a drink that was dusted with Pop Rocks candy around it's rim and another friend of mine had one with Sour Patch candy swimming at the bottom of the glass. I forgot to mention something important about the bar. The bar at Dylan's serves alcoholic beverages with some sort of candy incorporated in it. So, yes. The bar allowed us to be mature and childish at the same time!

I was going to get a drink, but decided to go with a sundae at the last moment. I picked their Roller Derby sundae, which was crafted around cookies. There were three different scoops of cookie flavored ice cream, whipped cream, caramel, chocolate chip cookies, and a fair amount of Whoppers (they're malted milk balls covered in chocolate).  

For a meetup that I wasn't going to go to, that day turned out to be jammed packed and extremely fun. There's always something to do in New York City, especially if you're with friends. 

°˖✧ 'Till next time