Grindr complaints.

I recently updated my profile "About" text on Grindr. I included that I was interested in nudism.

Apparently, talking about nudism is against the rules on Grindr, so they deleted my "About" text.

Then I changed it to nude beaches. And they deleted it AGAIN.

Seriously??? We're not allowed to mention nudism AT ALL??? That's so fucking ridiculous.

Black's Beach

I had a great time today relaxing nude at Black's Beach in San Diego. The day was gorgeous, and so was the eye candy!

I love being naked!

Review: Grand Spa, Koreatown

Amenities: 3/5

Cruisiness: 2.5/5

Price: $15

Pros: Price is ok. Good supply of small towels. Three pools.

Cons: No privacy in the sauna. Tends to be crowded with mostly straight Asian guys. 

Yay, another review! Did you miss me?

I'd been to Grand Spa before, over a year ago, but I wanted to go and get a fresh look at it before I wrote up a review. (I had forgotten a lot about it anyway) I didn't have anything going on after work today so I swung by on my way home.

I'd forgotten from my earlier visit that the entrance is up this side staircase... for some reason, the outer hall is all done up in this ancient Egyptian motif; it's kind of odd.

Upon entering, the locker room is very small; doesn't seem like it's much bigger than a 10x10 room. And inevitably, there's someone with a locker really close to me, so we're doing the whole awkward changing-too-close-to-each-other dance. When you open your locker, there's a robe, a small towel, and a large towel. Note that this large towel is the only one you'll get. They keep a supply of small towels by the shower, however.

From the locker room, I entered a glass door into the spa area. There are showers in there (upright on the right, seated showers on the left)... the body wash is in loose bottles; they look like they were from the 99-cent store or something, and smelled way too floral for my tastes.

Once past the showers, there is a steam room on the left. I really liked the steam room; the temperature was just right for me. Hotter on the upper bench, but less so (such that you could sit in there for a while) on the lower bench. It also pleasantly smelled like cinnamon. The steam room is fairly large, and although the wall is glass, the steam is enough that you can't really see too far into the steam room.

The dry sauna is right next to the steam room. It's fine, temperature-wise, but again it has a huge glass wall that means it's not at all private. There's also a big-screen TV in there (and also facing the other direction, outside of the sauna) showing the latest in Korean television. 

Across from the sauna and steam room are the pools: a cold pool, a warm pool, and a hot salt-water pool. I've said before that I like when they give us a choice for temperatures; when there's only two pools, the hot pool tends to be TOO hot. But here, the warm pool felt great.

Back outside of the spa area, there's a TV room with a bunch of recliners, and a dark, quiet sleeping room. The sleeping room is quite private (if there's nobody else in there), but when I was in there there was a guy snoring loudly... something about Korean spa sleeping rooms, I guess; I always seem to find ones with loud snorers.

The place was fairly cruisy though. The clientele was roughly 2/3 Asian, but I could tell that a few of them were looking to play. I was in the steam room and this older Korean man was being fairly obvious about checking me out. Not my type, but I didn't really mind... I didn't let it go any further than looks though.

There was another attractive (white) guy, we fooled around a little bit in the steam room and the sleeping room, but with the amount of people there on a Thursday evening, it was difficult to get much privacy. As I was leaving, there was another Korean guy that I'm pretty sure was checking me out, too.

Anyway, Grand Spa is fine; nothing to get too excited over though.

Grand Spa
2999 West 6th Street (at Virgil)
Los Angeles, CA 90020
http://www.grandspala.com/

Mini meetup?

Thinking about heading to CJ Spa Hermosa on Thursday after work (6:00pm to whenever), if you're interested. Post something if you think you might go.

Review: CJ Spa, Hermosa Beach

Amenities: 3/5
Cruisiness: 4/5
Price: Normally $20, but they're having a $10 "Summer Special" going on through the summer!

Pros: Clean, quiet, sauna and steam room are kind of hidden and private, saunas are perfect temperature (in my opinion)

Cons: Towel stinginess, small spa area, no seated showers, doesn't really have a cold pool.



So last Friday, I was again in the South Bay so I decided to head to CJ Spa in Hermosa Beach.

This one was hard for me to give an accurate rating. On the one hand, the quality of the facility is good. The temperature of the sauna and steam room was my ideal temperature, and the whirlpool was pretty close to that too. The place is clean and everything.

However, it's SMALL. There aren't all of the standard amenities one would expect in a Korean Spa. For example, there's no cold plunge pool, only an awkward-to-use rock pool with waterfall that's scarcely a replacement. There are also no seated shower stalls, and only three regular showers. Well, four, if you count the odd one between the whirlpool and the scrub table. Like its sister spa in Northridge, they only give you one bath towel and a hand towel when you enter.

Despite all that, I actually liked this spa quite a bit. Why? Because although it wasn't very crowded while I was there (no more than 5 guys at any one time during the 4 hours I was there), pretty much every guy there was looking for action. (except for one really cute guy, sadly). The door to the steam room is frosted glass--with no other windows-- and the dry sauna only has a small window on the door. This means there is quite a bit of privacy in these rooms. Employees seemed to constantly be walking through, though, so one would have to be careful.

Side note: the male employee that was working the front desk was one of the employees always coming through. When I was in the sauna (By myself, usually), he'd stick his head in and ask if everything was all right. Not sure if he was doing this purely from a customer service standpoint, if he was checking for inappropriate conduct, or if he just wanted to see me naked. Honestly, the latter option is the one I find the least objectionable... He was actually kind of cute. :-)

Anyway, based on my Friday evening experience, I thought it might be a good place for a future meetup, if the front desk employee would stop coming through. (especially during the $10 summer promo!)

CJ Grand Spa
1601 Pacific Coast Hwy. #280
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

http://cjgrandspa.com/

Review: Riviera Spa, Torrance

Amenities: 3/5

Cruisiness: 1/5

Price: $25 (includes Jim Jil Bang)... but there's a $5-off coupon on their website

Pros: Nice clean facility, plenty of towels, not crowded

Cons: Saunas hotter than I prefer, a little pricier than comparable spas

I had only just heard about this spa last week; I guess it's fairly new. Anyway, I happened to be in the area for work, and decided to get some late afternoon spa time in, rather than face a Friday rush hour commute.

I arrived in the lobby and the staff was very friendly, and when I answered "yes" to the question "Is it your first time here", a gentleman showed me to the locker room and gave a very brief rundown of the locker room area. Separate (non-lockable) cubbies for shoes... I'd normally put my shoes in the locker (even if I removed my shoes by the cubbies), but with the guy showing me around, I felt compelled to use the non-lockable shoe cubbies. Still, I'm always paranoid that someone's going to walk off with my shoes.

The locker room is nice, with dark stained wood cabinetry. I stripped off my clothes and headed to the shower area. There are plenty of showers in there, both upright and seated showers. In fact, probably more showers than I've seen at any other Korean spa I've been to (except maybe Wi Spa)... there's a resting area with a handful of leather recliners and a muted TV set to Korean programming.

The men's spa area had three pools (hot, warm and cold)... the warm pool was plenty hot for me, actually maybe slightly hotter than I'd prefer, but not horribly so. The warm pool is also HUGE, probably the biggest I've seen at any Korean spa so far. (according to the nearby sign, the capacity was 32 people!)... one annoyance was that the spa jets were on one of those dial timers, so after 20 minutes or so the jets would turn off, and one would have to get out and turn the dial again to turn the jets back on. The spa area was tiled in mostly granite; it felt pretty upscale to me.

There was a sauna and steam room in the men's spa also; the steam room was also a little hotter than I'd like (but again, not horrible) and the dry sauna was much hotter than I like; I could only stand it for a few minutes at a time. Even though there was a rug on the floor, the floor was hot on my feet. And the benches were hot to sit upon, even with a folded towel between my ass and the bench. 

The place was practically deserted when I arrived; there was only one other guy in the entire men's spa, and he left not long after I arrived. So I had the men's spa to myself for half an hour or so. Then, probably a little before 6:00pm, a few more guys arrived, including a father with his young twin sons (maybe 7 or 8 years old)... If you're a regular reader, you know my feeling about the kids, but these guys were actually pretty well behaved. They didn't stay long either; I assume they went up to the Jim Jil Bang. Few more guys came and went, but I don't think there were more than maybe 5 or 6 guys at most in the men's spa at any one time.

That said, zero cruising action was happening here. I was the only non-Asian there, with the exception of one other guy who arrived toward the end of my visit, and most of the guys there were older and, presumably, straight. This isn't really the place to go to to find guys willing to play around. There's not really any privacy there either, except maybe in the back of the steam room. It probably gets busier on the weekends, but with the distinct lack of privacy, there's no opportunity, really. For voyeurs, though, while there's unlimited towels, they're too small for people to wrap around their waists, so everyone is stark naked.

While I was there, I visited the Jim Jil Bang. It was fine; there were three heated saunas and one cold sauna. There's a restaurant there also which smelled really good. I hate having to wear clothes in the Jim Jil Bang area though... they just feel annoying to sweat in the saunas. So I didn't really stick around for very long. The elevator between the men's locker room and the Jim Jil Bang was making odd noises too, which didn't really inspire me with confidence.

All in all, a nice place for a sweat and a scrub. And nobody walked off with my shoes.

Riviera Health Spa
3601 Lomita Blvd (just east of Hawthorne)
Torrance, CA 90505

http://rivierahealthspa.com/

Century now open 24 Hours?

I was at Century Spa today and saw a sign on my way in saying that they're now open 24 hours on the weekends. (As of June 1.) I had meant to take a second look on my way out but completely forgot until after I'd left.

Seems kind of odd to have a 24-hour spa when the sleeping room is permanently closed. Grr.

Anyone been there overnight? Any reports?

And on a tangent, what do I have to do to get guys to stop wearing towels? I swear, Century is the only Korean spa where guys cover up.