Subway Sauna

It's currently 5.45 am, which is really early for me. I just woke up quite spontaneously about 20 minutes ago. My body clock has been so strange lately. The side-effect of these circadian rhythm shenanigans is that I am much more prolific so here is the second entry in my series about non-US gay saunas. This one is my favorite of the gay saunas that I've been to! It's Subway Sauna in Melbourne.

Basic info:
http://www.subwaysauna.com.au
13/363 Flinders Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

Hours: 24/7

Entry: AUD24

Subway Sauna is in Melbourne proper, as you probably guessed from the address. It's in the heart of the city center (sometimes referred to as the Central Business District or CBD) by the historic and beautiful Flinders Street Station. Because of its proximity to this major transit hub, Subway Sauna is very easy to get to. It's not that hard to find from the street but the sign isn't the most eye-catching and from the outside you might think that there's no way they fit a sauna in there. But you'll be very surprised at how spacious it feels once you enter.

Subway Sauna is part of the Banana Alley Vaults (I giggled at the name too ;-P). The vaults used to be a storage vault where merchants would store their ware before bringing them to market. There were a lot of bananas stored and ripened here with ethylene gas, hence the name (thanks Wikipedia!). The vaults are quite narrow by modern shoplot standards but they make for such a memorable space and really force the interiors to be designed creatively. 

Subway Sauna is very interesting from a design standpoint. It doesn't have a lot of width and is confined to just one floor. What it does have in abundance is length. It stretches back from the entrance quite far and goes right under the train tracks (You can actually hear trains as they pass by overhead, which I thought was very cool.). The people in charge of Subway Sauna did a really awesome job with the space that they had and turned what could have been a disadvantage (a narrow, long space) into an asset. It never felt claustrophobic or confining.

Immediately after you enter is the lounge area. Since there is no restriction on serving alcohol in places that allow full nudity (there are laws prohibiting that in the US), there is a small bar attached. Off the lounge is a passageway leading to the massage room and a video room with a huge bed. I saw a group of bears there. They were having a blast :-)

Past the lounge is the locker area. Once you get past that, you enter the cruising area with private rooms. Once again I have to commend the person who laid out the interior. This area was quite compact in retrospect but it felt much bigger at the time. Unlike a lot of similar areas in other saunas I've been to, this one wasn't disorienting and yet still had a lot of nooks and crannies and dark corners. The rooms were pretty good too. Many of the ones I saw were a good size and had elevated beds. Condoms and lube were in every room. Unlike Wet on Wellington, this lube was the good stuff!

The final section of the Subway Sauna tube housed the wet area. This was the most open section and the ceiling was quite a bit higher than in the rest of the vault, enough that there was room for a smoking area up a flight of stairs. The wet ares had a nice, modern open showers that were the perfect temperature. The main feature is a large, long hot tub with a big TV playing porn on one end. There was also a good-sized steam room and a dry sauna off to one side. I liked the steam room - the temperature and humidity were low enough to allow comfortable play but high enough that it was nice to just steam. I wasn't as big a fan of the dry sauna. It felt weirdly laid out. It essentially had three alcoves.

A final bit about the premises - it is probably the nicest looking of all the gay saunas I've been to (not all that many admittedly). While Babylon in Bangkok has some beautiful outside spaces (that writeup is coming in the future), the actual sauna part of it is nothing to write home about in terms of design. Subway Sauna is quite modern and looks really cool. It makes extensive use of black, red, and wood. The overall effect is one that's contemporary but inviting.

I visited on a weekday, right around lunch time. As I had mentioned in my Wet on Wellington review,  I was a big fan of the crowd here. There weren't that many people during my visit (I'd estimate 15-20) but there were quite a few guys there that I was really attracted to and ended up having a lot of fun with. The crowd at Subway Sauna skews older than at WoW but that was perfectly fine by me. I like guys in their 40s and that was a lot of the crowd that day. Because of its location within Melbourne's city center, I think that professional guys in their 40s is the usual crowd. I didn't see that many guys in their 20s or early 30s but I was occupied for much of my time there so I could have just missed them. Guys were started streaming in right when I was leaving at 3 pm and they seemed to skew quite a bit younger.

I ended up having fun with two different guys. Both were my usual type (40s, white, in good shape, larger than me). One even had a shaved head, which drives me crazy for some reason. There is something so manly about a guy who can pull off the shaved/buzzed look. They were both really memorable sessions :-)

Final score: 9/10. I loved the space and the men. Definitely making a return visit next time I'm in Melbourne.

Wet on Wellington

The first in my series about international gay saunas I've been to will be about Wet on Wellington in Melbourne. It's in Collingwood to be exact, which is the gay district on the north side of the Yarra river (Melbourne is divided in two by it). I didn't have a chance to get to the other gay district in the south side but I believe there's a gay sauna there too. Melbourne seems to be covered in them in fact. For a moderately-sized city, I counted at least four gay saunas. There are also several bars/clubs that provide spaces for sex on the premises. Add in cruisy gyms (of which I am sure there are quite a few) and Melbourne men have an abundance of choice!

Here are the basics about WoW:
http://www.wetonwellington.com.au/
162 Wellington Street, Collingwood VIC 3066, Australia
Hours: Weekdays noon to 2 am, weekend 24 hours
Entry: AUD26

It's located just a block from the main gay bars in Collingwood (Sircuit and Peel) so it gets a lot of the after-club crowd. I went around midnight on a Saturday and it was packed. More and more guys just kept streaming in the later it got. I left around 3 am and it was still hopping. Because of its location, it gets a lot of different types of guys. Whatever your type is, you will probably find someone there on the weekends at night. I would be interested in finding out what the crowd is like during the day and on the weeknights. If anyone wants to leave some info in the comments. please feel free.

WoW is pretty big. It has about three floors but I wasn't entirely sure because of the somewhat confusing layout. A lot of stuff was packed into space. There were a couple of video rooms/lounges, mazes, gloryholes, and lots of private rooms. One of the most memorable things about WoW was the decor of the pool and hot tub area. Evidently taking inspiration from ancient Roman styles, there were columns and white plaster statues of naked men along one side of the long pool. The overall effect was a little cheesy but I appreciated the effort. The hot tub was deep and big enough to fit 8 comfortably. Pretty good temperature too.

On the same floor as the lockers and pool were the steam room and the dry sauna. The dry sauna was rather narrow and small. You could have maybe 4 guys in there. Any more and it would have felt quite crowded. The steam room was across from the dry sauna. As far as steam rooms go, the temperature and amount of steam were lower than I would have liked but I guess that made it more conducive to play. It was very dimly lit. There was a raised platform in the center of the room that's meant for play I guess. No one used it while I was there although there was a lot of action going on.

As I mentioned in a previous post, your entry fee gets you a locker and access to all the rooms, which are on the second floor. Most of the rooms were pretty small, about the size of a single bed. Some were double the width and a few were really large. The small and medium rooms had a vinyl-covered mattress on the floor while the larger ones had more of a bed but the same type of mattress.

Condoms and lube were provided in every room along with paper towels. The condoms were fine. Interestingly, they were all XL. One of the reasons I dinged WoW's score is that the lube was terrible. It was very watery and seemed to dry as soon as you got it on your hands. Just really made many encounters awkward because we had to keep reapplying lube.

For an establishment of its type and considering the high turnonver rate in the rooms, WoW was quite clean. I didn't really see them but they must have had staff constantly going around and cleaning up. I've been to places in the US that are much worse about cleaning up the rooms even though you are paying extra for the privilege of accessing them. And the less said about the maze areas of some of the US joints, the better.

I played with a few guys while I was there. I met someone at Sircuit and we went into WoW together. He left early and I played the field for a bit. Although there were a lot of guys, I wasn't particularly enamoured with anyone. Basically, I just messed around because I was horny and not because I was attracted to that person in particular. This was quite different from my experience at Subway Sauna. I realize that this particular aspect is beyond anyone's control and highly subjective but it's my blog and I'll complain about what I want to ;-)

In summary, I would go back to Wet on Wellington and give it another go. The facilities were good and I liked that it was very busy. And the crowd might be more to my tastes. I would be sure to bring my own lube the next time though.

Final score: 7/10 (mainly because of the lube and not finding guys I was very attracted to)

Saunas Around the World!

I recently went on a trip where I visited three very different cities in three very different countries: Melbourne, Bangkok, and Tokyo. Although I didn't have too much time, I did make it a point to visit at least one gay sauna in all three cities.

There were quite a few differences from my experiences in American ones. All the saunas that I went to in those three cities were really large and well-maintained. The gay saunas that I've been to here in the States were much smaller and usually in a state of disrepair (with the exception of Steamworks in Chicago). Another interesting difference was how the saunas in other countries handled rooms vs lockers. The US saunas were the only ones that charged for private rooms and didn't really provide a lot of closed-off space to play if you didn't get a room. In the international saunas, it's a flat price to enter and rooms are available to anyone (Tokyo was a bit of a hybrid).

I plan to write up an entry on each place that I went to and go into detail about the people I encountered and the facilities. All were quite memorable in their own way. I'll provide a score for each place in this post in case you absolutely can't wait for the full rundown ;-)

Melbourne
Wet on Wellington - 7/10
Subway Sauna - 9/10

Bangkok 
Babylon - 8/10

Tokyo
24 Kaikan Shinjuku - 7/10

Wi Spa Visit

I went to Wi Spa on a recent Tuesday morning. It was one of the big K spas that I hadn't been to so I thought it was time. I was also in the area on some business. So two birds, etc., etc. ;-)

The facilities were really nice although not significantly better than Century. I found the dry sauna way too warm. Couldn't even sit on the benches comfortably half the time. The steam room was pretty good although I wish they had put in some sort of essential oil. The smell reminded me of the steam room in Lion's Spa actually.

I would definitely recommend this place for newbies. It's not as intimidating as some of the others can be and since there is little to no play, there's no pressure to do anything sexual. That said, there was some stuff going on that morning. Very discreet and confined to the steam and sleeping rooms. The amount of traffic just makes it difficult to do anything beyond make eye contact with someone.

Would definitely go back there. But only on $15 Tuesday.

Hacienda Joy Sauna Review

I had to head far east of LA recently on a weekday. Just because of the timing, I was going to run into traffic on the way back. Since there are few things that I enjoy less than sitting in my car in traffic, I decided to pay a visit to Hacienda Joy Sauna. I ended up spending a really long time there (about four hours) partly because I quite enjoyed myself and partly because it took that long for the traffic to finally clear up.

Guy's Spa Guide has a very thorough review of the facilities so I won't go into anywhere near as much detail. Everything he said about the facilities was still accurate when I visited. The one thing I want to emphasize is that the sleeping room is really warm. Don't go in there without a robe and a few towels. Even if you are going to be completely nude, you'll want something to lay on because the floor is that warm. I think I sweat more in there than in the dry sauna! I really like the layout - it uses the space very efficiently and has a good flow to it. In terms of how nice things were, I'd say it's roughly in between Wilshire Spa and Century. Joy still seems like it's stuck in the 90s but it doesn't feel run-down like Wilshire can.

Guy's Guide gave it a 4/5 in terms of cruisiness but I would give it a 5. Aside from a few older Asian guys, everyone there seemed to be in the mood to play. Both Asian and non-Asian. And there is plenty of opportunity to make connections with other guys. Because the dry sauna and steam room have narrow doors, there's a lot of privacy. Additionally, those glass doors are basically impossible to see through because of the water stains. It's also easy to hear people coming. You get plenty of notice.

The other popular play area is the sleeping room I mentioned above. There is a window in the door but it's one-way glass - you can see out of the room but not in. Because of the heat, no one seemed to use it for its intended purpose. As far as I could tell, everyone who went in was looking to play. Again, it's really easy to see and hear people coming. Lots of notice. Bring water in with you too if you can. You can get dehydrated very easily in there.

It was decently busy while I was there. I arrived around 3 and there were about 6 people there, about half interested in playing. As the day went on, more people started streaming in and there was a good turnover rate too. The crowd wasn't the most conventionally attractive and definitely skewed older than Century or Wilshire. I think I was the only person there below 35 (not that I minded since I like guys in their 40s). Don't go here if you're looking for someone with a gym body. I would describe most of the guys that day as having average physiques. That wasn't a big problem for me because when I go to a spa and feel sexual, most of the charge is from the setting. I guess you could say my standards get looser. All the guys I encountered that day were pretty uninhibited. Guy's Guide said it was difficult to get privacy for one-on-one and I would agree. However, I got in a lot of play still because the other guys (ones I wasn't interested in) would still want to watch and volunteer to act as lookouts. I haven't really had that happen before. So kudos to openness and camaderie.

I would probably go back to Joy if I was in the area again. If I lived a lot closer, I would go there from time to time (maybe once a month) because I did like the facilities. The relative openness is also a plus since Century can sometimes feel very inhibited and clique-y. I wouldn't go out of my way just to go there though.

20141204 Century Spa Visit

Was there around 3.30-6 today. Wasn't the biggest crowd (that seems to be Friday/Saturday nights) but it was very busy still. Everyone there was in a mood to get off! Some really hot times :-)

Russian & Turkish Baths in NYC

Hello world!

For my first post, I am going to write about my recent experience at the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village of Manhattan (268 East 10th St, http://www.russianturkishbaths.com/). Tl;dr it was one of the hottest times I've had, both literally and figuratively. You should definitely check it out if you have the chance.

I was in NYC for a vacation recently and really wanted to check out the spa/sauna scene there. LA has several Korean spas, which range from bathhouse-level cruisiness (Lions, Wilshire) to no play at all (Wii, Natura). The atmosphere at some spas varies depending on the time of day (Century). Gay Guy's Guide to Korean Spas in Los Angeles (http://guysspaguide.blogspot.com/) and The Spa Junkie (http://thespajunkie.blogspot.com/) are excellent resources for LA-area spas so I won't go on much further about that topic. NYC doesn't really have a comparable scene as far as I could tell. I wanted to go somewhere which wasn't a straight-up bathhouse but still had a charged atmosphere and the possibility of some showing off and looking. After much Googling, the only spa/sauna option in Manhattan seemed to be the Russian & Turkish Baths (also referred to as the 10th Street Baths in some of the online resources I found). Manhattan is supposed to be getting a K-Spa in Midtown in the next few weeks though.

I made it to the baths during the male-only hours on a Sunday. Most of the time, the baths are co-ed, which means not full nudity. The attendants make you put on shorts. At the time of writing, the male-only hours are from 12 pm to 5 pm on Thursdays and 9 am to 2 pm on Sundays. To make matters even more complicated, there are two separate owners/managers who alternate weeks. In practice, this only affects you when it comes to coupons. For example, if you buy a Groupon, make sure to read the fine print and the baths's website (http://www.russianturkishbaths.com/#!hours/c15kq) so you know if you can use it that weekend since coupons are manager-specific.

The baths are tiny compared to most of the K-Spas in LA. For someone who is used to a lot of (personal) space, this can be rather overwhelming at first. I quickly got used to it though. The locker room was on the entrance level. The saunas, steam room, and cold pool were in the basement. There is one upper floor which is mostly taken up by massage rooms but has an outdoor patio. Although the patio was mostly quiet during my visit, I would not think of it as a play area because there is a security cam (strictly speaking, you can't be naked there because people in the surrounding buildings could see you). I am going to talk mainly about the basement from here on out.

The basement is long and narrow and not all that well-lit but the atmosphere never felt sleazy or dicey. The basement is probably about 80 feet long and 20 feet wide, with a main hallway. On one end was the Russian Heat Room which actually felt like being in an oven. It was so hot in there that I couldn't stay for more than a minute at a time. There were buckets of cold water so you could douse yourself but it was too much for me. Right outside, were some standing showers (almost always a short line for them). A large Turkish sauna, dry sauna and steam room were off the hallway. A cold pool rounded out the amenities. I didn't try the pool but was a big fan of the steam room and the dry sauna.

The crowd was so dense that day that the dry sauna and steam room were frequently standing room-only. If you have personal space issues, this is not the place to be. There was no place to get away from the crowd other than the rooftop patio I mentioned earlier. It seemed like the crowd was very heavily gay although I saw a couple of older Russian gents who were obviously straight. The variety of guys present made for very fun people watching. As in most places like this, the crowd skewed older (average age was probably late 40s) but there were a significant number of guys who were under 35 present. The attractiveness of the men ran the whole gamut. Most of the guys were white (I think I was one of three or four Asians). People were generally quite friendly and open to chatting, which is not always the case at the LA K-Spas.

Now for the good part: the cruise level. It was pretty high when I was there. Someone told me it isn't always that high but that there's always a little bit going on. I got there around 10 am and things were a bit slow but picked up exponentially around 11 am. I had thought the place was crowded when I got there so imagine my surprise when the number of guys seemed to double at 11. The play was mostly limited to some showing off and group jacking. I saw some oral in the steam room but it was brief. There was play in all the rooms (yes, even the inferno Russian Heat one) but it was concentrated in the steam room and the dry sauna. There was a roving attendant to stop guys from playing but it was easy to spot/hear him. Play was also frequently interrupted because there was a lot of movement between rooms. All that said, the atmosphere was highly sexually charged and I really enjoyed that. I love that feeling of being horny but not really being able to do much about it aside from looking and a couple of furtive strokes.

A final note about my time there was that I really enjoyed how comfortable the guys there were with each other. I saw a lot of guys exchanging massages openly, without it turning into a sexual thing. There was also a fair amount of conversation and small talk. It was a very welcoming environment and I would gladly go back even if the sexual elements were stripped away from the experience.