When I was asked what I wanted to do to celebrate Mother's Day, my answer didn't surprise anyone. I wanted to go to tea :-) They were all happy to go along with that request though, of course, because they all like afternoon tea too. We hadn't tried the tea at the Ritz yet, so that was our Sunday afternoon adventure.
It was quite the spread! Jeff and I got the pink champagne version, and Elena actually ended up with pink tea for her first tea drinking experience. It was a peach flavored tea, and after she added some sugar and let it cool off, she liked it a lot. Vivian was the queen of the sugar pot and carefully used the provided tongs to fish out sugar cubes, so she was very happy too. They had crustless cucumber sandwiches, which brought me great joy, and Jeff, being the kind husband he is, let me have all of them. We also all got a kick out of our four teapots lined up in a row.
The Ritz used loose tea leaves, so they had cute little metal strainers that fit on the side of the cups. The girls were delighted with this extra step, but it's a bit tricky, so some tea leaves were lost in the process. The scones were also delicious and heart shaped, which was a nice touch.
We got extras, because that was everyone's favorite, but I was sad that they served them with butter instead of clotted cream.
Jeff nobly tried all the desserts.
Elena is also turning into quite the taster of things, so she tried the pink eclair which ended up being filled with rose jam and was quite calm about the unusual flavor. She was also the only one brave enough to try the pastry stuffed with boiled egg, and actually enjoyed it and tried to get the rest of us to eat ours as well.
Since we had had two afternoon teas in a month, we couldn't help comparing them. Our verdict was that the food at the St. Regis was better, but the tea at the Ritz was better. It's also worth noting that the St. Regis gave us extra of anything we wanted at no extra cost, while the Ritz charged us for the extra scones.
The Ritz had something the St. Regis didn't though, a harpist. Vivian was the first one to pick up on the music, probably because the harpist was playing arrangements of Disney songs.
The girls were both impressed by the beautiful instrument, and Elena was really into the big chandelier as well.
After all that food, we wanted to go for a walk. The Ritz is connected to the JW Marriott which is across the street from Pavilion Mall, so we walked through various connecting hallways and shopping areas. In one spot, there was an Aston Martin which Jeff just had to take a picture of.
The girls and I were not big fans of the color, but it had a SOLD sign in the front window, so somebody must have liked it.
When we got to Pavilion, they had all kinds of flowers set up for Hari Raya, so we took some pictures while walking around and window shopping.
Jeff wanted to stop by the Swatch store to check out the Omega/Swatch collaboration on planet watches. They came out recently, and there were huge lines of people waiting to buy theirs. A month later, there was no one at the store at all, so we could easily take a picture.
Once he saw them in person, Jeff decided they were too small for him, so that was some money we didn't have to spend. Jeff and the girls also took me to L'Occitane to pick out some nice products as a Mother's Day gift. They got it in a gift box, and I had an official opening when we got home.
Elena was upset that we hadn't gotten anything for her, and she wanted me to share, but she has moved past it now. To her credit, she did make me a lovely Mother's Day card.
She also finished her Sketch and Paint after school activity and brought home all of her art work. My favorite is her picture of the Eiffel Tower deciding to run away while the rest of the city looks on in surprise.
She also did a lovely still life,
and her own version of The Sleeping Gypsy by Rousseau. We decided we like her version better than the original.
There's less than a month of school left, which seems strange, because in so many ways we feel like we just got here. We're getting settled in though, and we're so grateful for the good life we have here.
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