Dim Sum Meet

While meets that involve simply gathering together to eat seem to be the most common kind (usually focusing on afternoon tea), I find that my comm doesn’t have them that often. Which is odd since we all like to eat and like good food. When this Dim Sum meet was initially announced, it clashed with Doki Doki, but then got rescheduled – and there was no way that I was going to miss out on yummy dumplings!

| BtSSB Sugar Bouquet Shirring Princess JSK | New Look cutsew | Bodyline
L553 bolero | Cutie Creator headbow | Baroque tights | offbrand heels and pearl
necklace | Milkribbon Misako brooch |

Nothing like cute stickers to cover up a random
person behind you.

This meet demanded one thing: full body shirring. I’m lucky enough to have three fully shirred dresses, as well as one fully shirred skirt, but somehow I decided to go with Baby’s Sugar Bouquet. The whole outfit was aimed for comfort and, ever so slightly, for warmth. I was surprised by the positive reactions to that Bodyline bolero (as if you needed further proof that their stock photos are awful) and to how well these Baroque tights held up (no need to pull them up despite walking a fair share that day). And the Labiotte lip tint – it’s a novelty wine bottle thing, but it survived all those dim sum the whole day and some of the following day even!

Whether it’s because we’re a big comm or because dim sum is a great thing, the meet was well attended with eleven of us (including myself) attending. It was nice to see some people whom I haven’t seen since London, as well as meet a couple of new faces (to the newest group member: if you’re reading this, I hope you had fun and that you will come again, even though it must’ve been a very intimidating first meet to be in a large group of people who already know each other and with an age gap).

The place we went to was called Crown Buffet which, although technically is in the city centre of Leeds, I wouldn’t have been able to find it on my own as I would’ve started doubting myself just before getting to it. It’s in quite an awkward area that looks deserted and just like dead space between busier roads. However, it was well worth visiting: the dim sum selection was big and reasonably priced, with the cheapest being around £3 and the most expensive around £4.20 mark, as well as pretty tasty. There were some that were a miss, like the mixed veg dumplings (which looked like something out of Blue Planet and, to be honest, tasted like that too) or the beef balls (I didn’t have them, but the friend who did was defeated by how dense they were). But for the most part we enjoyed the food and the atmosphere, just being able to chat about anything and everything, from the most random to the most serious.

Those were just the first few dishes that arrived!

Love me some gyoza!

Because I have to get plain rice - forgetting that Chinese rice
isn't the same as Japanese rice. Still nice though.

After filling up our stomachs (and waiting a little before actually being able to stand up) a group of us headed for the Christmas market which had just opened in Leeds recently. This is also where we took advantage of the last of the daylight. However, by the time we were done with the outfit shots, we decided that the wind had picked up a little too much and we’d rather go for a hot drink and cake. We ended up in a bubble tea place where all the cake had finished, so we just had tea (which was probably for the better as I wasn’t exactly hungry, so just tea and no cake was better on the waistline). You know that time after the official meet has finished and there’s only a few of you still about, just chatting? These tend to be my favourite parts of the meets, everyone’s a lot more relaxed then and feel that sense of trying to keep the good time going before we all go back to our daily routines. Some really good meet ideas were thrown about there, which would be incredible if they happened, so let’s hope that one day they will.

Where we were was more fun fair than market.

Still looks cute though. All my other photos
turned out blurry. :(

It was so pretty, but ended up so blurry.

Upon regaining energy we all ended up going to Lush – mainly because I needed to go, but there were others whose ears pricked up at the sound of the word “Lush”. It was on the way to the train station anyway, so why not take advantage of the convenience? I wish I could say that the £66 I dropped there was all for me in a serious bout of Treat Yo’ Self Syndrome, but most of it was presents for other people. Still very satisfying to carry a Lush bag this heavy with goodies. Our last stop was Wilko, where I picked up some plastic gift bags – and a friend bought the biggest pink plush unicorn I’ve ever seen for a mere bargain of £30! All Despicable Me references were very much appropriate and the way I see it: we all wanted to buy whatever toys we wanted when as kids we thought of what our adult lives would be like, so if someone’s actually living that, then I applaud that!

For all of that fun I managed to return home at a reasonable time, just past 7pm, although since it’s November, it was dark for good three hours prior to that, making it feel as if I returned very late. The next meet will be Winter ILD, so having something more casual just before that was absolutely lovely and very much needed. And it just felt nice to say “Goodbye! See you at ILD!” to people. ^^

Have you had any nice casual meets recently? Or a genuine need for full shirring to be able to handle all of the delicious food? It’s fine though if you’re hibernating because November can be a bit miserable – what do you do to keep the frill connection at a time like that?