African Tour:Cape Town part 5

Cape Town is one of the world's great outdoor cities. There are ample opportunities for skydiving, paragliding, hiking, running, horseback riding, cycling, kayaking, surfing, kite surfing, diving, snorkeling, swimming, and pretty much anything you want to do outdoors all year round. The rainy season is in winter, June to August, though it never really rains all that much. Cape Town's wettest month barely gets more rain than Hong Kong's driest month. We were there in November, the end of spring. There were a couple of days when it looked like it might rain, and we had a pretty good thunderstorm one night, but it never rained enough to make any difference to our plans.

My travel companions were Taiwanese, who are generally not great lovers of the outdoors. Finding someone to hike with was always easy. Most hiking paths in Taiwan are shaded by trees, so they assumed hiking in Cape Town would be the same. Kayaking and paragliding was a little harder. Getting someone to go swimming was damn near impossible.

We had a backyard swimming pool in Durban. No such luck in Cape Town. The backyard was large enough for a pool. The neighbor to our immediate right had one. We did not. Fortunately, Cape Town has plenty of beaches.

Cape Town beaches are usually divided between the Atlantic side and Indian side, even though the Indian Ocean does not actually touch Cape Town. Since all of the coasts are on the Atlantic, it would be more accurate to divide the beaches between the western peninsula and False Bay. No one does, though. Everything on the west coast is considered the Atlantic side while False Bay is the Indian side. The only reason it makes any sense is because the protected water in False Bay is much warmer than the wide open and cold Atlantic coast.

Boulders Beach
Our house was in Simon's Town, which is on False Bay, the “Indian” side. We pretty much all went to Boulders Beach, mostly because it is near the penguins. The beach itself is small and has far too many rocks to be anything other than scenic. That often means secluded. Unless it is right next to the only penguin colony in Africa anywhere near a city. The best thing Boulders has going for it, other than penguins, is the warm water. Not only is False Bay warmer than the Atlantic, but Boulders and Foxy Beach are in a bit of a cove. They are sheltered from the sheltered water. There are several tiny beaches in the Simon's Town area. Most of them look like Boulders and have the same combination of sand and giant rocks.

Fish Hoek Beach
Just north of Simon's Town is Fish Hoek Beach, a full service beach with changing rooms, showers, lifeguards, and shark spotters. The town of Fish Hoek is famous as a retirement community. Early mornings are when the “golden oldies” come out. They call themselves that, so it must not be too derogatory. The beach is also a popular place for fishing, which makes sense given its name. I saw a few people standing on the rocks with poles, and there are apparently always nets near the shore. That might be one of the reasons Fish Hoek is not all that popular with surfers.

St James Beach
Just north of Fish Hoek is St James Beach. It is too rocky to be useful as a beach, but people like to picnic on the small patches of sand. St James is famous for its colored changing rooms, for some reason. I suppose colored is not the right word in South Africa. It is famous for its colorful changing rooms. There is a Metrorail station at the beach, which is convenient, but the train tracks are right up against the sand. That makes the view better from the train, while it dampens the view from the beach. The only reason to go to St James Beach that I noticed were two separate tidal pools, which are great for children or anyone who wants to swim in the water without any risk of getting pulled into the bay. The southern pool is larger, but looks less natural.

Muizenberg
Photograph by Ingmar Grewar
Just north of St James is Muizenberg. The beaches are separated by a rocky coast, but a road, train, and pedestrian walkway connect the two. Muizenberg is far larger than St James, is more of a traditional sandy beach, and is far more popular. It is supposed to be one of the premier surfing locations in Cape Town. I never saw any waves worth noticing, but maybe I did not go at the right time. Muizenberg has more multicolor changing rooms that get photographed more often than St James, in addition to lifeguards and shark spotters. As a city beach, there is more civilization just across the street. You might want to bring your own food at some of Cape Town's beaches. Muizenberg has more than enough shops, restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, flea markets, and hotels. There is even a tiny water park and miniature golf course. Muizenberg is a family beach with easy parking. It is the last place you want to go if you like solitude.

The Atlantic side, the west coast of the Cape Peninsula, is much colder and has more interesting beaches.

Bloubergstrand
North of the City Centre is Bloubergstrand, a long, windy beach that seems perfectly designed for kite surfers. It was too crowded and too close to civilization for my tastes, but everyone who visits Cape Town has to go to Bloubergstrand since it has the best postcard view of Table Mountain. If you have ever seen a picture of Table Mountain, odds are it was taken from Bloubergstrand.

Clifton
Just west of Lion's Head is Clifton, a small cove community where the rich people like to hang out. The small beach is divided into four beaches, for some reason. There are boulders separating each beach, but they are easy enough to walk around. Some of the gaps are large enough to drive a dune buggy through. Clifton beaches are popular, not only because they are geographically removed from the poor people, but because that cove keeps most of the harshest Atlantic wind away.

Camps Bay
Less than a kilometer south of Clifton are Glen Beach and Camps Bay. What looks like one white sandy beach are actually two beaches divided by boulders that are more of a permanent sand castle than border. The Camps Bay neighborhood presses up against both beaches, so privacy and seclusion are never an option. Like most of the popular beaches, there are tidal pools on either side and plenty of places to get food and drinks. What Glen Beach/Camps Bay has over everyone else are the seaside views of the Twelve Apostles.

Llandudno Beach
At the southern foot of the Twelve Apostles range is Llandudno Beach, a tiny patch of white sand next to a tiny residential neighborhood. There are no restaurants anywhere nearby and most of the parking is in front of people's houses. Like most of the Atlantic beaches, the water was ridiculously cold. Yet it was one of the most crowded beaches I went to in Cape Town. I'm not really sure why. There are better beaches, easier beaches to get to, more secluded beaches. For whatever reason, Llandudno is a favorite with the locals.

Hout Bay Beach
Just down the M6 from Llandudno, which is mostly a drive in a valley between mountain peaks, is Hout Bay Beach. Hout Bay is one of the larger neighborhoods on the southern peninsula, with a fishing marina about the same size as the beach. The marina brings a lot of birds that you never see at other beaches and a seal or two. Since the beach sits deep inside the bay, which has mountains on either side, it is not nearly as windy as some of the Atlantic beaches. The water is entirely too cold, but at least you can stay warm on the sand.

Chapman's Peak Drive

Long Beach
Chapman's Peak Drive, which is easily the most scenic car route in all of Cape Town, goes from Llandudno to Kommetjie. Long Beach is billed as the longest beach in Cape Town, which makes sense. Except there are longer stretches of uninterrupted sand at Muizenberg and Blouberg. Those beaches have different names at arbitrary spots, even though you have no idea when you cross from one beach to another. I suppose, from a certain point of view, Long Beach is the longest. There is also a Long Beach at Simon's Town, though it is one tenth the size, if that, and kind of an ugly beach. Kommetjie's Long Beach certainly felt like the largest beach in Cape Town. Probably because it was entirely deserted when we went. I never understood why some beaches were more popular than others when the most popular beaches were often my least favorite. I'm sure timing and location had a lot to do with it.

More than for its size, Long Beach became one of my favorite beaches because we rode horses. With the stables at the north end of the beach, we were able to ride the entire length of the beach, past the skeleton of a wrecked ship, over the river, and through the dunes. It is not entirely impossible to ride a horse in Taiwan, but only one of my colleagues and I had ever seen a horse in person. Fortunately, the Long Beach horses were exceptionally calm and unfazed by foreigners and our unusual language. To horses, all humans speak gibberish.

Sandy Bay
My favorite beach was Sandy Bay, for a few reasons. It had the same white sand and freezing cold water as most of the other Atlantic beaches, but it was more isolated and harder to get to. There was no neighborhood pressed against the beach. That meant no lifeguards, no shark spotters, no restaurants, no arcades, no boardwalk, and no crowds. Llandudno was over a mountain ridge and Hout Bay was a valley away. I can understand why parents like to take their children to busy beaches with ample parking and easy snacks. I prefer as much nature as possible when I go to the beach. The less I see of anything made by man, the better. Sandy Bay also happens to be Cape Town's only nude beach.

Getting my Taiwanese friends to go to the beach was always a chore. They are not beach people. Taiwan is an island in the Pacific Ocean, yet most of its natural beaches are ignored. Kenting is a popular resort town. Most people go for the night markets and food. Whenever I have seen anyone on the beach, they have been fully clothed and hiding under umbrellas. Swimming and feeling the fresh air on your skin are not popular activities in Taiwan.

I went to most of Cape Town's beaches with a handful of Taiwanese. Only two of them ever wore a bathing suit and only one went into the water. The Atlantic side was too cold even for me, but getting them into the warmer False Bay water was difficult. In Taiwan, beaches are to be viewed and photographed. I thought the Cape Town beaches were too inviting to waste.

I took one friend to Sandy Bay. I knew it was a nude beach long before we went and I knew I was going to use it as such. That meant bringing the only Taiwanese who would have even possibly considered going nude. Once there, it was up to her what she was going to do. I was going to enjoy the beach as much as possible, weather permitting. Fortunately, the weather could not have been better. The water could have been warmer, but that was never an option. At least the sky cooperated.

She chose to keep her bathing suit on. There were a few other people at the beach, all bare ass naked. She felt it was unsafe with other people around. The one Chinese woman on the beach was the only person wearing any clothes. She said that if we had been alone, she might have gone nude. I doubt it. She probably would have said it was unsafe without any other people around.

Where I live, people stare at me all the time. I am hardly the only foreigner in Taiwan, but I am most definitely a foreigner. Every once in a while, a child will even point to me and call out, “外國人”. I have never seen a parent tell them not to do that. They are correct, after all. I am a foreigner. In Cape Town, no one stared at me, as far as I know. I was not obviously a foreigner, until I spoke. Even then, foreigners are not such a rare occurrence. There are many white people in Cape Town. Some would say there are too many white people in Cape Town. No one ever stared at my Taiwanese friends, either. The Chinese community in South Africa is much smaller than the white community. Unlike Taiwan, no one is all that impressed by someone who looks different. The exception was on Sandy Bay. My Taiwanese friend got a few glimpses here and there. Not because she was a foreigner, but because she wore clothes. I thought that was interesting. She stood out the most when she was around people who would definitely stand out in any other setting.

Clear Water Bay 2022

We just had our annual summer trip to Clear Water Bay. By we, I mean Lily and me. Kevin did not go this year. It is his boss who owns the big house. Theoretically, he is the one who is house sitting while the boss is on vacation. But the boss knows about Lily and me, and does not seem to mind that we go to his house just as much as Kevin, if not more.

Going to Clear Water Bay is harder than ever. When we lived in Yau Ma Tei, it was an easy MTR ride on a few different lines and a quick taxi or hike to the big house. From Kaohsiung, it is a quick MRT ride from our apartment to the gaotie, a two hour train from Kaohsiung to Taoyuan, a two hour flight from Taipei to Hong Kong, a thirty minute Airport Express ride, two MTR lines, and a quick taxi to the house. There are also 90 minute flights from Kaohsiung to Hong Kong, but Taipei has far more flights and last minute availabilities. Maybe next time we should fly from Kaohsiung and save a couple of hours.

Since Lily is not a citizen, she is subject to all the arbitrary changes to entry rules and regulations. As a Canadian, she never needs a visa to go to Hong Kong, but now that China is changing their plague policy every week, we had to plan this trip more carefully than usual. We had to book the flight online, which we would have done anyway. They currently have a quota system for foreigners, so there was an extra application step for her. Apparently, I can just waltz into Taoyuan and buy a plane ticket to Hong Kong. She cannot.

She had to get a PCR test two days before the flight. That is very easy around here. Her school is an authorized testing site, so she simply made an appointment, showed up, got a stick rammed up her nose, and waited for the result. A positive test would have killed the entire trip, long after the tickets could be refunded. Fortunately, we live in a place where almost everyone always tests negative.

We both had to scan health declarations on our phones, but that was both easy and completely pointless. Anyone could lie about that. It was like walking through the 'nothing to declare' line at airport customs no matter what you have in your luggage.

From Hong Kong Airport, it was business as usual. Except we took a taxi to the big house. The Airport Express to Hong Kong Station is usually a little faster than a car, depending on traffic, but a taxi from the airport to the house was much faster than the Airport Express/MTR combo would have been. The funny thing is that I almost never took taxis the first few years I lived in Hong Kong. Now, I seem to take them from the airport all the time. It probably makes a difference that I used to live close to the Airport Express Kowloon Station. Going to Clear Water Bay or the Ma On Shan apartment is much slower by train.

Another funny thing is that we have an apartment in Hong Kong, yet we stayed at some guy's house. But one of the main points of this trip was to stay at that house. The Ma On Shan apartment has swimming pools, but they are open to everyone who lives in the complex. The Clear Water Bay swimming pool is completely private. Swimming is one of the best reasons to go to Hong Kong, as far as I am concerned. Rain or shine, I had every intention to hit that pool every day.

We used to throw parties at the big house. I think we must be getting older. Not a single person besides Lily and me set foot on the property the entire time we were there. We saw plenty of friends, but always somewhere else. I have no real explanation for this. I definitely wanted to hog that swimming pool all to myself, but I have no idea why Lily never invited anyone over. I think we are both starting to recognize how strange it is that we even stay at that house at all. Now that we are homeowners ourselves, letting in people who are complete strangers to the big house owner feels different.

For Lily, this was a summer trip during her school vacation. For me, it was a summer trip and a quiet place to work on some paperwork I had to do for a new job. She certainly spent some time in that swimming pool, but not nearly as much as I did. To her, swimming every day is excessive. Just as shopping is to me. For whatever reason, she prefers the shopping options in Hong Kong. I think they are pretty much the same as what we have in Kaohsiung, and if not, Taipei is close enough. Since this was the only thing we disagreed on during this trip, the solution was simple. Whenever she went shopping, I jumped into the pool.

We also had some business to attend to. Our Kai Tak apartment is still being built, but one of the inspection deadlines was coming up. At least one of us was going to have to go to Hong Kong whether Kevin's boss took a vacation or not. We simply timed it so we could do both. Lily and I agreed that the apartment is looking good, but what do we know. Neither of us has any construction experience. We will not really know that all is well until everything is done. That will have to wait for a future trip. Hopefully, no one gets a stick up the nose.

One night in the hot tub on the pool deck under the stars, Lily casually wondered if the house owner had any hidden cameras anywhere. In eleven years of staying at the big house, that never occurred to me. As soon as she said it, I thought about what he might have seen in those eleven years. During this conversation, Lily and I were completely nude, of course, but no camera on the pool deck would ever be able to see under the hot tub bubbles. However, it would see everything that happened on that deck, some of which I would never want to see posted online.

Most of the nudity at the big house was probably out on the pool deck, but it seems more likely that if the owner had any hidden cameras, they would be indoors. There are no valuables outdoors, unless someone knows hot to pocket a swimming pool. There was plenty of nudity indoors as well. I am pretty sure Lily and Kevin have had sex in just about every room of that house. I may have had an inappropriate relation or two in that house, mostly in my room, and maybe in the kitchen once or twice. This is why we think the owner most likely does not have any cameras. If he saw videos of Kevin getting it on in his house, we have to assume he would have said something, or at least looked at Kevin differently.

But if there are cameras, they saw multiple parties, including more than a few on Moon Cake Day. The boss goes on vacation during that holiday more than any other. I think I would be more embarrassed by the parties than swimming naked. In my mind, it is perfectly natural to swim naked. I will wear a bathing suit if I absolutely have to, but would rather not. Hosting a party at someone's house while they are away sounds more irresponsible to me. For dramatic action, the only video I would want to see was when I tore a deltoid ligament out on the pool deck ten years ago. That was not fun at the time, but I would not mind watching it now. But I sure as hell don't want it posted online.

My Birthday Present part 2

Hisoka and I had both just arrived in Hong Kong from short flights and long airport delays, so neither of us objected to a soak in a hot tub. I brought a bathing suit to Hong Kong because our new apartment has two swimming pools I wanted to try out. I also brought it to Hisoka's apartment because he said there was a pool downstairs. He never mentioned the hot tub because he wanted to surprise me. And it worked. He surprised the pants off me. Hisoka brought his own tiny trunks, which I never saw on this trip. As private as that hot tub was, he agreed with me that bathing suits would have been gratuitous.

It is worth noting that I see nothing inherently sexual about swimming, or soaking, naked. I have been in thousands of swimming pools, hot tubs, hot springs, lakes, rivers, and general bodies of water without doing anything even adjacent to the neighborhood of sex. Hisoka and I got naked in a Miyajima hot spring on our first real date, and hanky panky was categorically tabu. Not only were we surrounded by older people, but that sort of thing would have gotten us kicked out and banned for life.

It is also worth noting that neither Hisoka nor I had our spices ground for a considerable period of time. The fact of which was vividly illustrated when I got into the water. What is a discreet way to put this? Hisoka shot his load all over the deck faster than a teenager in the back seat on prom night. He was fully erect before he even took off his clothes. Watching me get naked and penetrate the jet bubbles was too much for him. I like to put a positive spin on things, so the good news was that none of his seed spilled into the hot tub. I had no idea how often that thing was cleaned. I only knew that hosing off the wooden deck had to be an easier job.

With sex in the water out of the question, we both sat back and enjoyed a nice soak. Yes, the polite thing for him to do would have been to service me. That would have required me keeping most of myself out of the hot tub, and I wanted to be in it. Besides, we had all day.

We talked about going out to hit the town, but we both had a busy week ahead of us. Sunday was our day of rest. It made more sense to make use of the apartment. Since it was an apartment and not a hotel, we had to go out when we wanted to eat. I like staying in apartments better than hotels, but hotels have room service.

For lunch, we went to Feast, an upscale buffet restaurant on King's Road near Quarry Bay Park. They had a wide variety of local food on tiny plates and local food pretending to be international food, with more soups, salads, and sides than anyone really needs. They even had coleslaw, which is not something you see every day in Hong Kong. I mostly just got desserts, because that is how I roll. Hisoka got several tiny plates of stamina, because he would need it. We both knew that after lunch, I was going to ride him like the Matterhorn. Hong Kong Disneyland has no Matterhorn, but saying I would ride him like the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop sounds almost insulting.

Hisoka and I are both old fashioned in matters of the heart. I like to wait a painfully long time before I jump in the sack and he tries to get laid as soon as possible. We are more new fashioned in our willingness to find less traditional locations. Hot tubs, for example. Balconies are another. I have always been fond of kitchen coupling. The typical kitchen counter tends to be a nice height. Whoever invented islands was a genius, though quartz countertops can get cold.

Despite being open to several rooms, a few secluded outdoor spots, and pieces of furniture that are not beds, we found ourselves on the bed. Next to the bed was a large, almost floor to ceiling window with unobstructed views of Devil's Peak. I never really noticed the view with Hisoka on top of, under, and behind me. I can say that it was a nice bed, with a bit of give and not too much bounce.. Traditionally, Chinese beds are hard. Pillow tops have only recently made their way to China. You never want anything in your bed to be too soft, while a nice cushion under your butt or knees is good for longevity. What we call queen size on this side of the world is smaller than what I consider queen size. That queen size was wide enough for two, if a little on the short side. I am probably much shorter than anyone in the NBA, yet I have spent countless nights with my feet hanging over the bed.

I may have misspoken about the view. I seem to recall looking at the hills while we were pressed together on the tiny bedroom balcony. Though I suppose, technically, that was not in the bedroom.

Hisoka brought a box of condoms to Hong Kong. That might sound presumptuous, but it is far better to have something you might never use than to not have something you desperately need. He brought them from Japan instead of buying them in Hong Kong because he says Chinese condoms are too small. This is where things get interesting, and probably more than a little offensive to a couple billion people.

According to Hisoka, condoms in China are smaller than condoms in Japan. I cannot verify such a thing, but my first boyfriend in Hong Kong, who was not even a little Chinese, also claimed they were too small. In his case, he was making a mountain out of a molehill. Despite not wielding a katana himself, he assumed Chinese men were all holding a tanto. Hisoka, both on the other hand and using the other hand, has a more realistic self-image. He has seen enough porn to remain humble, and spent enough time in hot springs and locker rooms to boast. When he says Chinese condoms are too small, I have to consider it theoretically possible. Yet I cannot ignore that Durex and Trojan are in more than a few stores, and I know they come in more than one size. Several Japanese brands are widely available. It seems unlikely that those Japanese companies are making extra small sizes for the Chinese market. Unless it was for purely mocking purposes.

On what has to be the most important hand, a typical condom can stretch more than enough for almost every man. Unless you are exceptionally tiny or exceptionally huge. I would imagine more men have difficulties with condoms that are too loose. The funny thing is, I have never heard of a single man in the history of the universe say that condoms are too big.

Which brings us to a question that every man I have ever known has asked me. Does size matter? To men, yes. It absolutely does. To women? I don't know. I speak for only one woman. But I know that even if Hisoka were hung like an elephant, spraying the pool deck would have still been useless to me. It is not simply the motion of the ocean that counts, but how long it takes that boat to dock. A cabin cruiser that makes it to shore is a million times better than a giant oil tanker that spills crude 3,000 kilometers from its destination. The good news is that after Hisoka's blue balls turned beige, he had far more control. The other good news is that he had a box of condoms. Just one would not have been enough for the day. Though I still say what he could get in Hong Kong was sufficient.

Before dinner, we spent more time in and around the rooftop hot tub. November is not the best time to lie out and get a tan, and Hong Kong is not the best tanning city. Not that it matters. My skin goes straight from alabaster to lobster. But that particular deck had ample sitting and/or lying room, and the sun, such as it was, still felt good on my skin. Especially on a rooftop with a soft breeze and no one staring at me. Or at least only one person staring at me.

For dinner, we went to Frites, a Belgian restaurant just off King's Road near Quarry Bay Park. Or at least a Chinese version of a Belgian restaurant. Hisoka picked it because I used to work in Belgium. Except, I have never worked in Belgium. I was a little disappointed that he thought my time in Amsterdam was actually Belgium. Then I realized that we rarely talk about our jobs. I told him I was going to Amsterdam when I did, but that was three years ago, and I might not have mentioned it since. I would be surprised if I have never mentioned Amsterdam. It is a wondrous city. I would be equally surprised if we had any meaningful conversation about my work in Amsterdam. He tells me about places he goes for work, while I only have a general idea of what he does for a living.

Having never worked in Belgium, I cannot say anything about how authentic the Frites menu is, but they had falafel quesadillas, which I support wholeheartedly. You can put falafel in anything, and you can put anything in a quesadilla, so why not falafel quesadilla. Being a Belgian restaurant, maybe, they also had a large beer menu. So we got a bottle of wine. We also got some frites with mayonnaise because when you go to a place called Frites, you have to try the frites. If I went to Mejores Tacos del Mundo, there is a pretty good chance I might get a taco.

Hisoka has always known that I can taste absolutely nothing. He still likes to show me restaurants that he thinks I would have liked back when I could sense flavor. I am more than used to going wherever whoever I'm going out to eat with wants to go, so I let Hisoka find all of our meals. Revealingly, he never suggested anything American, Chinese or Japanese. During business meals, he mostly eats Japanese. On his free time, he likes to try new things. His assumption that I would like to avoid American food is both sound and unnecessary since I rarely come in contact with American food.

Back when I had a boyfriend and an active sex life, I often looked at past travels in terms of food. One of my favorite things about going somewhere new was eating something new. I never reminisce about the places we knocked boots. Now that food is only something I eat to survive, I might start looking back at travel in terms of whether or not I got some action. In a few months, I will forget all about the restaurants on this trip. Without the coleslaw, our lunch would already be forgotten. What I will remember most are the naked bodies twisting around each other. And that rooftop hot tub. If you can put a hot tub on your roof, I highly recommend it. Unless you live in a gabled house.

The whole point of keeping the Ma On Shan apartment rather than renting it out was to have a place to stay whenever we are in town. I spent the first night somewhere else anyway. Lily spent the night in the new apartment, along with our tenant/Kevin's friend. I can pretty much guarantee that they had a patently different night than Hisoka and I. But there is no need to feel bad for Lily. She lives with her boyfriend. They can do all the deviant things Hisoka and I did any time. But we have no hot tub at home.

Naked Day 2021 part 3The Islands

Sofia's favorite beach was everything she had described, though larger than I expected. She kept telling us that it was tiny. I thought it would be maybe a dozen meters wide instead of half a kilometer. The sand was as white and soft as Sofia remembered, and we were the only humans on the island. We sailed past the pier on the way to the cove and it looked like it had not been touched in months, which made sense. The pier is only used by people visiting the island to watch dolphins migrate. Since the dolphins are getting closer to extinction every year and avoid Hong Kong during the crowded boat traffic of summer, the island gets fewer visitors than ever.

The purpose of a beach, to me, is a means to reach and/or look at the ocean. With the boat, I did not particularly need the beach. My skin goes straight from pale to burned. Getting a tan is never on my agenda. And if I wanted to burn, there was plenty of sunlight hitting the boat. But Sofia is a beach person. She knows where all the best beaches are in Hong Kong. That might sound like a wasted talent, like knowing which heavy metal singer has the sweetest voice, but knowing someone who knows where the beaches are can save a lot of time in a place like Hong Kong. Assuming you like beaches.

Swimming from a boat in a shallow cove to a beach is easier than hiking through the brush of a volcanic island, but we found our own obstacles. Beach towels tend to get wet when you swim to the beach, so we carried ours in waterproof bags. Amy could not carry a bag because she is a weak swimmer. Growing up in Hong Kong, swimming was never a priority, and she was in a serious car accident four years ago that permanently damaged one of her arms. She can keep afloat and move around, but she had to doggy paddle to the beach while I played lifeguard. We were both largely indifferent to spending time on the beach, but Sofia was going no matter what. We went to keep her company, and that meant bringing towels and drinks.

The beach was our primary destination, but we spent more time on the boat than anywhere else. We sailed around some of the smaller islands that were little more than large rocks in the water, which was more interesting the more I thought about it. Hong Kong is generally seen as a steel and concrete jungle, and even when you live there, it looks that way most of the time. But most of Hong Kong is country parks and uninhabited islands.

The most interesting stop of the day was easily Tai A Chau, the largest of the Soko Islands. Though just as deserted as all the others, it has remnants of previous inhabitants. We docked at a run down and weed infested but large and well built landing. Unlike the other islands, there were roads and paths to walk, even if they had seen better days. The villages on Tai A Chau were abandoned 40 years ago, and there was a refugee camp 15 years later. The buildings are mostly gone, but you can tell someone lived there at some point in time. It was like a smaller version of Yim Tin Tsai in Sai Kung, which has an abandoned village of houses full of furniture, clothes, and a variety of personal possessions. You can walk around as if everyone disappeared in a Twilight Zone episode.

Walking around Tai A Chau was far less creepy than Yim Tin Tsai, but it felt more dangerous. We probably should have put clothes on, but this was Sofia's naked day. Officially, I will say it was all her doing, but I did not object nearly as much as I would have expected. The island was conspicuously bereft of mammals.

I should probably point out that such a thing is completely illegal in China. I can recommend walking around naked in your living room, but doing so in public can become a jagged little pill if you get caught. And I can almost guarantee that no judge in Hong Kong will accept “but Hailey did it” as an excuse.

The newest structure on the island was the tiny Mazu temple, no bigger than a backyard tool shed, though not the smallest temple I have ever seen. It was originally built 200 years ago, but rebuilt 20 years ago. The bright new brick walls looked out of place on an island where nature reclaimed everything else. Walking into the temple naked was far and away the most inappropriate thing we did that day. But it felt less sacrilegious than it sounds because Mazu is essentially a Mother Nature goddess. Who better to appreciate our natural state? And the rebuild made it look almost fake. In my experience, most temples look much older.

With only 13 hours of sunlight in the day, we decided to head back after Tai A Chau. You can legally drive a boat at night, and Hu Jian was certainly qualified, but we did not rent it for the full 24 hours. We took the same route back, at an equally leisurely pace. The boat was comfortable enough to lie around and watch all the islands drift by, with large cushions near the bow and a soft sofa at the stern. Most of the people who rent the boat probably use it for fishing, which might be one of the reasons it is furnished for sitting around all day.

Past Lamma Island, we all got dressed again. Everyone in our group, especially Hu Jian, followed Sofia's lead when it came to nudist etiquette. He was the boat expert and she knew all about the dress codes. Amy and I went along for the ride. We were the experts at eating and drinking on our day off.

Naked Day 2021 part 2The People

I have friends in Hong Kong. That is the sort of thing that happens when you live there. One of them is a card-carrying member of the Hong Kong Boating Industry Association. He does not actually own a boat, but he is saving up to buy one. Ask him and he will tell you all about it. Parents have pictures of their children on their phones. Pet owners have videos of their cats knocking things off tables. He has pictures of the boat he wants to buy. It is nice, as boats go.

His girlfriend is a card-carrying member of the American Association for Nude Recreation. She literally has a membership card. She is from Canada, where I would not expect a great deal of recreational outdoor nudity most of the year, but she lives in Hong Kong, where there is even less.

They wanted to rent a boat and find a secluded island for their own naked day. They also wanted some people to join them because renting a decent boat is far from cheap. Lily, Kevin, and I were in. Hong Kong has some beautiful islands, and it always intrigues me how you can live in the city for years and never see most of them. Lily and I recruited Amy, the best massage therapist in all of China, as far as I know. We have all known each other for years.

Lily and Kevin met each other in Canada, long before any of us and long before I ever thought about living in Hong Kong. I met Lily and then Kevin more than ten years ago. I met Amy when she started giving me leg massages nine years ago. We started out professionally, but quickly became friends. I met Sofia about six years ago, immediately after which Sofia and Hu Jian met each other on their own. And since it is a small world after all, and Hong Kong is even smaller, Amy and Hu Jian discovered that their brothers went to school together, though they never crossed paths at the time. Their full biographies are not particularly important. What matters is that we have all been friends long enough that the initial idea of a naked boat day did not repel me. Though I always knew there was a 50/50 chance that it would turn into a regular, clothed boat day.

Lily and Kevin dropped out before anyone paid for the boat. They offered to pay their share anyway since it was a last minute cancellation, but that was completely unnecessary. Though we are all on our summer vacations, Kevin also had work to do. And I think he and Lily were looking forward to their own naked day at the big house, as long as I was out to sea.

That left four people on a boat designed to hold six to eight. I think more space is always a good idea whenever people are on a boat, especially if everyone is naked. We were never going to spend the night, so we never needed to adapt to close quarters. I was in it for the wide open islands anyway.

Hu Jian took care of all the boat logistics. He was the boat person in our group and this trip was his idea. Amy and I met at her house and went down to Kwun Tong together, where Sofia, Hu Jian, and the boat were waiting. The boat was moored in the middle of the water with a bunch of other boats, so we took a smaller boat taxi out to our boat. Hong Kong does not have nearly enough spaces to park all the boats, forcing most of them to park in the water without any kind of dock. That is the main reason Hong Kong has so many typhoon shelters.

From Kwun Tong, we sailed out of Kowloon Bay, into the South China Sea, around Hong Kong Island, and headed west. On a map, it makes more sense to go west through Victoria Harbour and then southwest between Hong Kong Island and Lantau, but that area holds something like 90% of all the boat traffic in Hong Kong. The way we went was faster, required less paperwork, and was more scenic. I suppose if you have never been to Hong Kong, sailing from Kowloon Bay through Victoria Harbour would be the bees knees, but anyone who has lived in Hong Kong for more than a month has seen Victoria Harbour from every angle. The islands south of Hong Kong Island are less frequently explored by pretty much everyone.

Our destination was the Soko Islands, less than 35km southwest of Kowloon Bay. I have no idea how many nautical miles that is. It took us about two hours, but we made a few stops and were in no hurry to get there.

Hu Jian chose the Soko Islands for a few reasons. The islands are easy to get to from Kowloon or Hong Kong Island, and even easier from Lantau, assuming you have your own boat. There are no ferries because they are completely uninhabited. North of Lantau is a rather large airport, freeways, and a lot of commercial and private boats going all over the place. South of Lantau is pretty much nothing but wild islands that most people never visit. One of the islands also has Sofia's favorite beach in Hong Kong. It is not especially large, but the sand is soft and white, and the beach is probably always deserted. There is a tiny pier on the island where we could have parked the boat, but getting to the beach from the pier requires a bit of a hike, and there are no trails. It was much easier to park the boat in the cove and swim to the beach.

Hu Jian was the only one wearing clothes by the time we arrived at the Soko Islands. He claimed to be busy driving the boat, but he was clearly the shy one in our group. At Kowloon Bay, we were all fully clothed. Technically, it is illegal to be nude in any public space in Hong Kong. Inside the cabin of a boat is considered private, while out on the deck is public, even on a large body of water with no other people visible to the naked eye. Go nude on the deck of a boat in the middle of Kowloon Bay and you might get a visit from men in uniforms. Go nude south of Lamma Island and no one will ever know or care. Supposedly, Lamma Island has an unofficial nude beach, but I would think it is too populated. Then again, I know Lantau has a nude beach, and it has 15 times as many people.

Amy and I wore bathing suits at the beginning of our boat trip, but Sofia, as the official nudist, shed her clothes as soon as we were clear of the shipping lanes from Stanley. We parked the boat at a little cove on the southern end of Lamma Island. Our goal was to go swimming and maybe explore the island a little. In the clean water between the island and the boat, Amy and I realized that our bathing suits were unnecessary. Though a few thousand people live on Lamma, they all live on the northern half of the island. While Amy, Sofia, and I floated and Hu Jian manned the boat, we pretty much abandoned the idea of exploring inland. The choice between air drying on the boat deck and putting all of our clothes back on to hike toward civilization and overpriced tourist trinkets in the oppressive humidity was an easy one. Lamma Island is a bit of a haven for artists, expats, and alternative types, but even on the most hippie island in Hong Kong, wearing clothes would have been required. Sofia had the right idea, so we carried on to the Soko Islands.

Naked Day 2021 part 1The Swimming

Have you ever walked around an abandoned Chinese fishing village naked? I suppose I can add that to the list of thing I never even thought about doing until it actually happened.

I have what is probably a not at all unique relationship with nudity. I am comfortable naked. I love being naked outdoors; the more natural the environment, the better. But I do not like to be naked around other people, unless I know them exceptionally well. I am perfectly comfortable with my body. As a dancer, I know it very well. We have been good friends for a long time. I am 30 years old, but could easily pass for 29. I run or bicycle every morning. I go to the gym most nights. Now that I do more choreography than performing, I dance less at work than I used to, and not at all during dress rehearsals and performances, but my typical work day involves far more physical activity than the typical office job. I like to think I am in decent shape. But I do not particularly like being watched.

I have been on stage since childhood, in one capacity or another. But never naked. I feel completely comfortable in front of an audience, and love getting applause. It is addictive. I have absolutely no problem being watched while performing. Performing without an audience is like potatoes without salt. At the same time, I feel nothing but uncomfortable being stared at off the clock.

I grew up around lakes. I come from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. It was not nearly as rural as Little House On the Prairie, but we used to go swimming in one lake or another every summer. Clothing was not always required, when we were too young to know what an abomination our sinful bodies were. Outside of lakes, there were rivers and swimming pools. My family never had a pool in the backyard, but I always knew someone who did. As a child, my best friends had the best pools in the neighborhood. I like to hope that was a coincidence. I spent a healthy percent of my childhood under water. One of my goals in life was always to own a house with a swimming pool. I now own a third of three apartments, all of which have pools on the estate. I don't live in any of them.

Finding a clean swimming pool in Hong Kong is difficult. There are plenty of public pools. None of them are free, as far as I know. All of them have the potential to be toilets. Literally. Seeing what the general public does in Chinese public pools has left me scarred for life. Maybe I am being too hard on them, and it most likely does not happen every day, but more than once is too much.

The big house at Clear Water Bay has a swimming pool. It is professionally cleaned on a regular basis. Most importantly, it is private. At most, I have to share it with two other people, both of whom I know exceptionally well. To me, the best reason to stay at that house is to use the swimming pool. Also to me, swimming with clothes on is ridiculous. If I have access to a clean pool, I am swimming. If it is private, I am swimming naked.

This summer was our tenth anniversary of staying at the Clear Water Bay house. It is also the tenth anniversary of my first visit to a nude beach, though that was in December. Despite living in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, I never went to any nude beaches there. My first nude beach was in Hong Kong, Land of 10,000 Islands. It was a nice little beach on the southern end of Lantau. Like most beaches in Hong Kong, it is almost always deserted. Especially in December.

I like to have at least one naked day whenever I stay at the big house. When we all lived in Hong Kong, it was pretty easy to have a day to myself at the house. We all have different schedules, and never spend every waking minute together, in Hong Kong or Taiwan.

I cannot rationally explain why I always want a naked day at the big house. Obviously, swimming naked is the way to go, and the sun and relatively fresh air on the pool deck feel good against bare skin. A light rain can be nice, too. But inside the house, there really is no difference between clothed and nude. The entire house is climate controlled, there is nothing dangerous about it in that secluded neighborhood, and since I am alone, there are no adult-rated shenanigans afoot. At this point, it might just be more traditional than anything else.

Except this year's naked day at the big house did not happen at the house, or anywhere near Clear Water Bay.

Burn You Up, Burn You Down

Way back in the olden days of January, I joined a gym near my house. I did not join for the gym. That part of the building was unimpressive. I joined for the swimming pools. Specifically, the lap pool with a dozen lanes, the ample hot tubs, and the water massages.

Before the swimming pool, I would jog or ride a bicycle every morning. I was thinking about buying my own bicycle since I always use the city bikes that are parked all over town. Having my own bicycle would save me NT$40 a day, and even though the city bikes are well maintained, anything I bought would probably be a better quality.

After I joined the gym, I mostly swam every morning, and ran or biked maybe once a week. Buying my own bicycle was no longer a priority. Though I did miss riding along the river in the morning. I love swimming, but the pool was indoors, so riding a bicycle outdoors was always a nice change of pace. And the more I thought about it, the more convenient the city bikes were. When I want to use one, I go to any one of a number of stations, scan it out with my MRT card, and return it to any station when finished. Every bicycle has a locking system, but parking and security are not much of an issue when you only have it with you while riding. I never have to oil chains, find a place to keep it, and best of all, I have never had to fix a flat tire. NT$40 is literally spare change. I have no idea what coffee costs, but NT$40 could buy two bottles of water from 7-Eleven.

Then everything changed. As it often does. The current drought closed the swimming pool, which upset pretty much every member of the gym. Almost no one went there for the exercise equipment. Everyone was in it for the pools. Since we were all members, and we had all paid our fees in advance, the gym was in a sticky situation. Giving everyone their money back would probably destroy the gym financially, and doing nothing was not an option. Taiwanese culture encourages complaining, even more than Chinese culture. Since most of the members were in a high enough tax bracket to usually get what they want, legal action was on the table. The government that forced the gym to close the swimming pools probably would have sided with the members over the gym.

Fortunately for all concerned, they were already working on opening a new facility. The timing of the drought was not ideal, but droughts rarely are.

About two years ago, the company that owns the swimming pools started building a new gym. Everyone agreed that the gym in the pool building was a waste of space, but there was no possible way to add onto the building without the neighbors volunteering to abandon their properties. Instead, they built an entirely new building on a separate site.

The new gym is maybe one hundred times larger. That sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, but the old gym was tiny and the new one is pretty big. The gym above the swimming pool was no bigger than a standard business hotel gym, with two treadmills, two exercise bikes, some light free weights and a couple of yoga mats. The new gym is five stories, with an entire floor of treadmills and exercise bikes, including a few recumbent bikes. It also has a wide variety of machines for each muscle group, including more than a few machines I have not figured out how to use yet.

Most importantly, there is a swimming pool. It does not have as many lanes as the old pool, but it is long enough for laps. Unlike the old pool, it is outdoors, which might be a challenge in an environment like Taiwan. The fewer hot tubs are smaller and indoors, and segregated by gender. I like that part. Unfortunately, the pool and hot tubs are just as closed by the drought as the old pools. When they designed and built it, there was no drought. By the time the gym opened, they were not allowed to use enough water to fill them. They look like they will be nice to use someday.

The old pool was a quick walk from my apartment. The new gym is a quick drive. So far, there is more than enough parking. That will probably change as membership increases. But I have already found a solution to a future problem that may or may not ever occur. My apartment is close to a river. Along the river are a series of parks with bicycle paths. One particular path can take me from practically my front door to within a block of the gym. There are city bicycle stations all along the river and one in front of the gym. Since the city bikes are free for the first 30 minutes, I can ride to the gym for the same price as walking, and get there much faster. At this point, I see no reason to buy my own bicycle.

Since the new gym is much larger, so are the showers and locker rooms. At the old pool, every member could put a lock on any available locker and leave it there indefinitely. Not having to drag all your crap in every day was pretty convenient. At the new gym, all lockers are expected to be empty by midnight. I have no idea what they do with anything anyone leaves overnight, but I have decided to follow their rules and not find out. Carrying a gym bag to the gym is a pretty standard activity.

Something I could not help but notice right away was the amount of public nudity at the new gym. At the old pool, you could hang out in the locker room all day and never see anything more scandalous than someone in a bathing suit. Everyone kept things in their locker, showered in the shower cubicles and changed in the changing cubicles. At the new gym, there are no changing cubicles. I would assume that most Taiwanese, being a fairly modest and shy people, would change in the showers. Instead, everyone changes at their lockers. And since the segregated saunas are adjacent to the locker rooms, some casually walk from one to the other as naked as dolphins. When I lived in China, I used to say that if you were a 12-year-old boy with the super power to turn invisible, China would be a disappointing place. As it turns out, a Taiwanese gym would be just as good as a 1980s teen movie.

At the old pool, no towels were allowed beyond the locker rooms. I never understood that rule. At the new gym, using towels with the machines is encouraged, though most people walk around without one. Gym etiquette is a little different here than anywhere else I have worked out. Rather than let a towel catch your drippings, everyone lets whatever comes out of their bodies onto the machines. But there is always a spray bottle full of isopropyl alcohol near every machine. Instead of wiping off a machine after use with a towel, everyone sprays alcohol on the machine before use. A wide variety of disinfectants have been pretty much everywhere since the last SARS outbreak, and no one thinks twice about spraying and/or wiping surfaces on a regular basis. I don't know anything about the gym's maintenance schedule, but I have seen employees practically hose down machines with alcohol when not in use.

With the loss of the old swimming pools and the addition of the new gym, I went back to jogging or riding a bicycle outdoors in nature every morning, or at least the closest thing we get to nature around here. And now I go to a real gym at night. Someday, I will be able to swim at night, or in the morning, but for now, I climb onto strange machines and push weights around while listening to music on a telephone. Just as nature intended.

High School Reunion6. Shiny Happy People

As the main party started to die down, some of us made our way to a very nice suite at the hotel. In high school, I would have been suspicious. What were their intentions? Why does it have to be a hotel room? Why can't we all hang out in a public, open space? Why did someone who lives ten miles away book a hotel room?

But things change when you get older. Almost everyone in that suite was in a long term relationship. Some of those partners were there. There was more than enough alcohol flowing freely that night, but no one was passed out drunk, at least not that I knew about. We all either learned how to hold our liquor since high school or we learned a little self control.

This was not a cheap party motel for teenagers. This was a recently redecorated high rise suite with great views at a downtown hotel for professionals. The bed looked comfortable, but no one did anything other than sit on it. Most of us kept to the living room, while a few people spilled out into the little office room.

The conversation was more interesting after hours. In the ballroom, there was a lot of small talk and getting reacquainted. In the suite, everyone was more relaxed and natural. I learned a lot about Chelsea's quest to find true love. She was relatively shy at the reunion, but in a smaller room with fewer people, her story of being a confused teenager to rebellious college student to confident adult was not as private as I would have expected. She is nowhere near the closet, and after living in China for a while, I was relieved that my fellow Minnesotans were not the least bit judgmental when it came to her romantic partners.

Back in the main reunion hall, one of my old friends said she was a composite artist, also known as a police sketch artist. That sounded like an interesting job, until we were all in the suite. Other than how they use computers more than pencils these days, the details were surprisingly mundane. If there is a TV show about sketch artists, they probably chase bad guys in sports cars and jump from building to building while making impossible shots with sharpshooter accuracy. In the real world, she sits in front of a computer and makes portraits out of insufficient information. She is not authorized to carry a gun or chase anyone. She finds the job rewarding but depressing. Most of the time, she works on missing people, including children.

As teenagers, we would have stayed out all night. As adults, we had to wake up the next morning or get back to baby sitters on time. Not me. I had the entire weekend. Everyone else was in their world living their normal life. That suite gradually emptied out until it was obvious that the party was over. Neither Chelsea nor I wanted to be the last to leave, so we left while it was on its death bed, but still had a pulse.

Back at Chelsea's house, she wanted to go swimming. She had a few drinks that night, but was not particularly drunk. I could not in good conscious go to sleep while she was in the pool alone, so I joined her. Night swimming deserves a quiet night. It was a peaceful way to end a hectic day.

High School Reunion3. You Can't Go Home Again

Minneapolis is 13 hours behind Hong Kong, during daylight saving time. So 6:00 in Hong Kong is 17:00 the previous day in Minneapolis. I assumed it would take me a day or two to adjust. When I woke up at dawn on Friday morning, it was dinner time in Hong Kong. I don't normally wake up at dinner time, but I have been known to get up at or before the crack of dawn. It looked like I was adjusting immediately. That seemed strange, considering the long day I just had.

Chelsea was just as surprised as I was, and quickly took advantage of the situation. She had to work that day and assumed I would mostly sleep, but if I could take her to work, I could use her car. Bringing all those Chinese documents turned out to be a good thing. Minneapolis has a pretty good transport network, but it is not nearly as expansive as Hong Kong's. The metro goes nowhere near her neighborhood. A car would be useful, if only I could remember to drive on the right side.

There was an entire city and a lifetime of memories to see. I knew where my first stop had to be. I went to my last high school boyfriend's house. That might seem like a strange choice, but his mother was like a mother to me, and I knew he would not be there. I lived in their house at the end of high school and they practically adopted me, which made dating their son a little weird. That's a pretty long story. I probably wrote about it in a book somewhere.*

We had a great morning together. We have kept in touch, so she knew all about everything I have been doing and I knew about what her children were up to. I used to be close to her daughter, but I have not seen her since she was a teenager. She is 23 now and has a job, a boyfriend and lives in Boston. Unfortunately, I would not get to see her on this trip. I would see her brother, my ex-boyfriend, but not this morning. It was just the parents and me. That was the closest thing to a family reunion I was going to get. I had other places to go and we knew we would see each other again that weekend.

I drove around the old neighborhood. I was in town for a high school reunion, so I think I was supposed to. It's in the by-laws. I thought I would drive past my parents' house, just out of curiosity or something else, but I never did. I braced myself for some big cinematic emotional moment, but in the end, I was more indifferent than anything else. I had places to go and that house was out of the way. This might have been the perfect day for driving through childhood. It was a hot summer day, but cloudy. It always looked like it was going to rain. There was a little bit of thunder here and there, which made the soundtrack more dramatic, but it never actually rained. It was also Friday the 13th.

I drove past the old high school. That is required. I should call it the new high school. There was a major $125 million renovation after I left. Today's school looks nothing like where I went. Memory lane was effectively a detour. I'm sure the current students do not fully appreciate it, but the school looks so much better now.

The neighborhood cultural attractions are golf, shopping and outdoor recreation. I don't play golf and I was never a member of any of the clubs. Mall of America is a sight to behold, but I live in Hong Kong, which is essentially a giant shopping mall. Malls don't impress me. What I really wanted to see were the falls.

When I was growing up, it seemed perfectly normal to me that we had waterfalls in the middle of the city. Now, I can appreciate how unusual that is. Minnehaha Park is a wonderful place to walk around or ride a bike. It is maybe a fifth the size of New York's Central Park, but it has everything you need in a park – hiking trails, picnic grounds, athletic fields, historic buildings, ancient geological sites, Minnehaha Falls and the Mississippi River. If size is your thing, Wirth Park is pretty much as big as Central Park and there are hundreds of others, mostly near or around natural lakes. Some national park agency keeps ranking Minneapolis the best park system in the country, for what it's worth.

All that parking around in the middle of July made me hot and tired. As it turned out, I was staying in a house with a swimming pool. One of the great things about Minneapolis, or any small big city, is that outside of a few pockets downtown, you can drive around on a Friday afternoon without ever hitting any traffic. The ten mile drive to Chelsea's house took about 20 minutes. Driving the ten miles from the Kennedy Town MTR station in Hong Kong to the Chai Wan station could easily take an hour or more. That is why they built the MTR.

The swimming pool at Chelsea's house was big enough for a family, and I had it all to myself. Chelsea would be at work for several more hours. The neighbor houses were a respectable distance away and bordered by fences, bushes and trees. The nearest surveillance cameras were probably at the small shopping center two miles away. None of the professionals who maintained the pool and lawn were expected until the next week. Discounting any NSA satellites that might be pointed at the suburbs of Minneapolis, I had about as much privacy as I was ever going to get. With all the clouds, even satellites would not be an issue. The constant overcast might not be swimming weather to most people, but I liked it since I go from lily white to beet red in minutes. So I did the only logical thing I could do. I got as naked as a dolphin and spent a short eternity in the clean, clear water.

By the time Chelsea came home from work, I was dead to the world in her comfortable guest bedroom. The funny thing about adjusting immediately to the time difference was that I did not. As soon as I was out of the pool, showered and dried, I went out like a politician's moral outrage when the cameras turn off. Chelsea had planned to take me out that night and meet some of the old gang again, but when she found me asleep, she let me be. I wanted to go out, but I could not blame her for not waking me up. I would see all of those people at the reunion anyway.


* Living With Livia
The international … seller
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Dating Underwater8. Midnight Serenity

By the time we got out of the hot springs and were properly dressed, Hisoka had missed the last ferry back to Hiroshima. He never planned on spending the night and only booked one room. We had a good time talking naked in the water, but I was not about to let him sleep in my room. It was not a matter of trusting him. There was nothing aggressive about him and I never doubted for a second that I could easily take him in a shouting match. The problem that night was that I could not trust myself. Hisoka was a kind and sincere man who happened to look really good naked. Had we slept in the same room, he would have considered it inappropriate as a gentleman to suggest any indiscretions against my honor. But I might have jumped him.

As it turned out, he was never going to take the ferry and had no intention of spending the night. He took a private boat back to Hiroshima. He had a big meeting in Tokyo the next morning and wanted to sleep at home rather than commute across the country. That sounded reasonable to me.

My night was more relaxing. After Hisoka left, I spent the evening at the hotel. There would have been no point in going back to the village. Even the bars were closed by then. I thought about reading a book and going to sleep early, but my mind kept wandering back to the mineral water. We have heated swimming pools, hot tubs and all kinds of spas in Hong Kong, but no natural hot springs.

The women's shower/locker room was empty and I wondered if anyone would be in the pools. Showering off all the minerals from last time, it crossed my mind that the hot springs might not be open all night. This was an island where everything closed early. Had I been in the United States, it might have suddenly occurred to me that I was naked and alone in a part of the building that was deserted and might be closed. In my country, that is either a red flag or the beginning of a horror movie. But this was Japan. Getting Marion Craned in the shower is not the Japanese way.

When I walked out of the locker room, none of the doors were locked. Nothing prevented me from going to any of the hot springs. Had it all been closed, the shower most likely would have also been closed. The springs themselves were natural. Turning them off was never an option. Instead of a handful of senior citizens relaxing in the water, there was a single young man. He was in the hottest pool, far enough away from where I wanted to be, but he was probably my age. This might not have been a red flag, but it definitely looked like the beginning of a pornographic movie. And we were in Japan. Japanese porn can get pretty weird.

Fortunately, he was not a half man/half octopus and he did not even acknowledge my presence. He was busy cooking in his pot and might not have even seen me through the steam. After I dropped my towel and sat on my rock, I forgot he was even there.

The hot springs were always nice, but at night when there was almost no one there, it was more peaceful. Other than the simmering water and a light breeze rustling the trees, there was a silence that was as relaxing as the pool. I could see why the Japanese invented zazen.

Dating Underwater7. Like Cocoon, But Everyone's Naked

Miyajima mostly shuts down at night. The restaurants and bars stay open after dark, but even they close early by city standards. Most people only take day trips to the island, most likely since Hiroshima is so close. The last ferry leaves well before midnight.

Hisoka had a dinner reservation waiting for us at the hotel before we got back. It was another Japanese meal, but more elaborate than what I had for lunch. In the village, I had rice and soup. At the hotel, they brought us entirely too much food. There was more rice and soup, of course, and noodles, pickled vegetables, steamed vegetables, intricately plated salads, seaweed as a dish and as seasoning. Unlike the standard steamed white rice that comes with every Chinese meal, this rice was larger and cooked with some type of green herb.

My impression was that this was probably the most authentic Japanese meal I have ever eaten. I have been to Tokyo, but there is a lot of foreign influence in the capital, and it is harder to avoid the tourist food. Miyajima does not seem the least bit interested in trying to be anything other than purely Japanese. There are plenty of tourists during the day, but most of them looked Japanese. Unfortunately, I could not taste any of the food I had on the island. Most of the time, having a numbed sense of taste is relatively easy to ignore. Going to a new place, especially one as culturally genuine as Miyajima, gets a little depressing at meal times.

After dinner, which neither of us were ever going to come close to finishing, Hisoka wanted to try out the hot springs. I had no objection to that. It was great in the morning. It should be just as great at night. My only issue, which I never bothered to articulate, was that we were supposed to be on a date. The most time we spent together was on the mountain and in the taxi ride from the airport. Mt Misen was exceptionally beautiful, but not particularly romantic. To me, romance is not gasping for breath and almost collapsing from exhaustion. Well, maybe under different circumstances, but not hiking up a mountain. We had a nice dinner, but now we were going off to separate hot springs. I think people should at least be in the same room on a date.

Before heading to our segregated locker rooms, Hisoka asked me if I had any tattoos. That might seem like a strange question, but this hot spring, as well as many others throughout Japan, did not allow anyone with tattoos inside. It is a universal rule that has several different explanations, depending whom you ask, but no one bothered to ask me the first time I went in. Not that it mattered. I have never liked tattoos and have no intention of ever getting one.

The women's shower/locker room was more crowded than it had been earlier, but not crowded enough for me to get self-conscious. I knew the routine and followed all of the proper etiquette. Just like every other woman who walked out of the locker room, I had a towel wrapped around my body. The indoor pool was just as empty as before. I think it might only be popular when it's raining.

The big surprise for me was in the outdoor pools. I saw Hisoka and a few other men as well as all of the women who walked out of the locker room. The other women went to whichever pools they preferred, dropped their towels and climbed in. I'm almost certain that they saw all of the men already there. In fact, more than a few women talked to some of the men.

I stood in front of my favorite pool, gripping my towel where the edges overlapped. Even if a typhoon suddenly struck the island, that towel was not coming off. When Hisoka saw me through the steam, he waved to get my attention. He motioned for me to come to his pool, but I had a few problems with that. It looked like all of the men were naked, although you never really know what's under water. Either way, I was naked under my towel. And if the dress code was not bad enough, he was in the rice cooker pool.

When he stood up in his pool, I had a decision to make. Do I look away or do I stare? I was curious, of course, but this was not the appropriate place to ogle men. Or perhaps it was the perfect place. There was steam rising from each pool, more from the hottest one. The hot springs had steam in the morning, but it was colder at night, and more difficult to see people through the mist.

It never mattered since Hisoka expertly positioned his tiny washcloth in front of himself as he stepped out of the pool. That was when I noticed that all of the men had tiny washcloths either near them on the edge of the hot springs or on their heads like white barets. I watched a woman get out of one pool, wrap her towel on, walk to another pool and drop the towel before climbing in. Under the water, everyone was naked as sin. The second anyone got out of the water, modesty prevailed and they covered their shame with whichever size towel they had.

Hisoka was covered, barely, when he walked toward me. He asked if I wanted to use a different pool. He assumed that my hesitation was solely about the temperature. I asked him why the men were not on the men's side, wherever that was. He laughed a little and explained that unlike most hot springs in Japan's largest cities, these rural springs were not segregated. The showers were and everyone covered themselves outside of the water, more or less, because that was the only decent and civilized thing to do. But the springs themselves were unisex.

I thought the men's hot springs were somewhere else and that I was on the women's side earlier in the day. Looking back, that was a stupid assumption. The hotel grounds would have to be considerable to have twice as many hot springs. With a mountain next to the springs and a road next to the hotel, there was no place to put anything else.

Hisoka saw nothing unusual about our environment, but he recognized that I am American. My ancestors were such religious extremists that they thought Catholicism was too liberal. He suggested we leave the hot springs altogether, but I told him that was crazy. The reason we came to Miyajima, the reason I flew to Japan, was for the hot springs. I loved it earlier in the day when I was alone with the old woman. I reasoned that I should love it again, even if there were other people around.

Something that really helped was how old everyone was. Had the hot springs been full of 20-something men/boys, I can almost guarantee I would have gone back to the locker room to get dressed. As it was, Hisoka looked like the youngest man there and I was likely the youngest woman. I'm generally a pretty terrible judge of Japanese ages, but most of the people in the water that night were hovering around retirement.

When I told Hisoka that I liked my bearably hot pool, he turned around and walked toward it. Apparently, the rule about covering yourself with towels only applies to the front. I watched his naked butt as he stepped into the hot water. Resting his washcloth on his head, he sat down and faced me.

I don't have a lot of rules about dating, but one of them has to be that my date can never see me naked on the first date. I don't know if that should happen on the 52nd date or the 104th, but definitely not the first. Any naturist can tell you that nudity has nothing to do with sex, but in my experience, getting naked on a date almost always has something to do with sex.

Maybe there was something in the air that night. Maybe it was my spontaneous trip to Japan. Maybe it was Hisoka's firm butt. Maybe it was the fact that we were surrounded by older people, none of whom would have looked too kindly on any youthful shenanigans. Whatever it was, I dropped my towel in front of my date, and several older people who may or may not have even known I was there, most of whom could probably not even see me through all the steam.

Hisoka smiled and watched me step into the pool. He might have watched a little too long. At least I was polite enough to look away when he got in, as far as he knows. As soon as I was in the water, I sat on a smooth rock and he asked me about my day on Miyajima. We talked about the island as though we were not naked and surrounded by other naked people. With mostly shoulders and heads poking out of the water, it was hard to notice fashion choices.

Dating Underwater5. Onsen Onna

Hisoka checked me into the hotel, which was convenient since no one spoke English and I know less than a dozen phrases in Japanese. He would not be staying. In fact, he had to turn around and take the ferry back to Hiroshima for a big meeting. He only went on the roller coaster van ride to escort me to the hot springs. He would come back a few hours later and we could have a proper first date. In the meantime, I could enjoy the hot springs, go back into town or just wander around the island.

Hisoka was taking the same tiny van back to the pier, so I could have easily gone with him and explored downtown Miyajima, but that sounded like going in circles to me. I was at a nice looking hotel that was supposed to have some great hot springs. I felt like I should probably give them a chance.

This particular hotel was built around the water. That was its biggest selling point. It was also small enough that it could stay booked without catering to foreign tourists. There were no English signs anywhere, and even though I saw the name of the hotel written in Japanese several times, I have no idea what it is.

My room was a combination of traditional ryokan and modern convenience. Everything was wooden, or at least wood colored, but there was also a modern bed and flat screen TV. While most hotel rooms have a white robe, this one had a floral yukata. This place was not trying to look authentically Japanese. It was authentically Japanese.

After Hisoka left, I figured I might as well check out the hot springs. At the back of the hotel were several rooms, one of which was the shower/locker room for women. Men had their own room a respectable distance away. The women's room had a red sign and the men's room was blue. Apparently, everyone in Japan knows that red is for women and blue is for men. I never knew that, but the signs also had the Japanese words for male and female, which are almost identical to the Chinese words. At least in writing. The pronunciation is completely different. Some of the first Chinese I ever learned was 男 and 女. Helpfully, to anyone learning the language, male is a stick figure trying to balance a big head and female is a stick figure dancing. Most Chinese words do not work out that well.

What I know about the myriad of Japanese rules and customs can fit on a leaflet. Fortunately, there was an old woman in the 女 locker room. She did not speak English, but we communicated through the international language of gestures and hand signals. Some facial expressions are universal.

I knew that public showers were not rare in Japan, so I was not entirely shocked when the old woman took off her clothes and placed them, gently folded, into a cubbyhole. She motioned toward the showers before she sat down on a tiny stool and hosed herself off. I followed, being careful not to stare at her while making sure that I did whatever she did.

The stools were short, as were the shower heads. I thought it would be difficult for older people to squat and shower, but she did it all effortlessly. She used the bucket without splashing any water, even though we were the only two people there. When finished, she cleaned the bucket, stool and shower wall. Other than everything being wet, there was no evidence that anyone was ever there. I suddenly realized why this system would never work in China.

Clean enough to go in the mineral water, the old woman wrapped a towel around her body and I did the same before following her outdoors. There were a few different hot springs of varying temperatures, both indoors and outdoors. The old woman pointed to each and said something, which I assumed had to do with water temperatures. She might have also tried to warn me not to put my face in the water, but I have been to the Dead Sea. The last place you want those minerals is in your eyes.

The old woman tied her hair up before choosing a pool. Women, and men, are not supposed to let their hair enter the water. Most women, and some men, simply put their hair up. I still have short hair, so it was not going to be a problem for me. The old woman then walked to her choice, took off her towel and sat naked in the water.

I dipped a toe into each pool. The one indoors was more warm than hot. The room looked nice, with wood everywhere and a wall full of paned picture windows that showed the natural scenery outdoors, but the pools outdoors looked better.

The old woman's pool was the smallest, and unbearably hot. I have cooked food at lower temperatures. She was obviously used to it. I went with the largest pool, which was hot enough to call itself a hot spring, but not hot enough to sear my flesh. Unlike a swimming pool, the hot spring had large rocks on the floor, as well as rocks along the border into the grass and stone paths. Swimming would have been difficult, but sitting on the rocks was easy. They were all smooth and at just the right height to remain mostly submerged in the water.

It was hard to tell how much of my surroundings were natural and how much was built by the hotel. Beyond the grass and paths were trees that quickly veered uphill. Other than whatever animals lived in the woods, the hot springs were protected from prying eyes. Not even the rooms in the hotel faced the water.

When the term idyllic setting was invented, they were thinking about places like this. I could have stayed there all day. But you can't cook in a hot spring for too long. When the old woman left her pool, she said goodbye to me and disappeared into the locker room. I don't know what the etiquette is for loitering in geothermal pools, so I decided it was time to go. The old woman wore her towel from the pool to the locker room, so I did too. There was no one else there, but when in doubt, do what the old ladies do. One of the few things I know about Japanese onsen is that you are not supposed to shower after the hot spring. You want to keep the minerals on your skin as long as possible.

Rested and simmered, I was ready to eat. The hotel had plenty of food, but I wanted to see what was available in town. Getting a ride was pretty easy. When you are the only foreigner at an inn in the mountains, there are really only so many places you want to go.

San Francisco 3

My California roommates and I went to Baker Beach in San Francisco because it was just on the other side of the Presidio. There is a larger beach on the west coast of the city, but it is much farther away and, something only two of my roommates knew about at the time, Baker is a nude beach.

I'm not sure why people are always trying to get me to go to nude beaches, but this time it was more of a case of the two Canadians wanting to get naked. It had nothing to do with me. The other American and I were only along for the ride.

What none of us knew at the time was that the north end of Baker Beach is the nude part while the southern end is just like any other beach. The bus to get there stops at the southern end and when we walked to the beach, the Canadians were disappointed to see that no one was naked. There were plenty of people on the beach. It was a great day to be there. The sun was out and it was not too hot or too cold. Summer was pretty much over, but it lasts longer in San Francisco.

People think that Mark Twain said, “The coldest winter I even spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco”. He never said that, but people always mention it because San Francisco summers are much cooler than summer in other American cities. People who don't know anything about Minnesota think it is an ice box, but Minneapolis summers get 20 degrees hotter than San Francisco. Mark Twain lived in Connecticut and New York. He obviously saw winters that were much colder than any summer in San Francisco.

San Francisco is not exactly a frozen wasteland. Their summers may not be very hot, but their winters are not very cold either. It rarely dips below 40 degrees. While the rest of the country is complaining that summer is too hot, it is quite nice in San Francisco, and when people complain that winter is too cold, it is mild in San Francisco. For people who like a relatively steady temperature, San Francisco might be the perfect city. I would go crazy because I like different seasons, but I'm sure plenty of people love it.

One of the reasons Baker Beach is so popular is the view of the Golden Gate Bridge. You have to climb on some rocks to see the entire bridge, but it's nothing challenging. You don't have to be a serious climber to get there. Even if you only stay on the beach, you are going to see the bridge. You can't miss it.

To get to the best views of the bridge, you have to go to the north end of the beach. That is where all the naked people are. The Canadians were happy about that and took off their bathing suits as soon as they saw other naked people. The fact that almost all the other naked people were older men did not bother them at all. I think they wanted to be seen more than they wanted to be naked, so older men were actually a good thing. Younger men might be too friendly. Older men will mostly keep their distance and just stare at you. That might be creepy to most of us, but for the Canadians, that was perfect.

My limited experience with nudists told me that they are not exhibitionists or voyeurs. Most of them simply want the freedom to get naked at places like a beautiful beach on a nice sunny day. The two Canadians were not nudists. They wanted to be seen. They were not complete attention whores. They did nothing outrageous to be the center of attention. They simply got naked. They would have been the center of attention on the clothed end of the beach, but on the nude end, few people even noticed. That was their biggest disappointment of the day.

None of us could understand why these two attractive, and very naked, young women were not more popular on this beach. There were a few other naked women, but they were all older and not exactly the kind of women most men lust after. Most of the naked men were older, but that does not mean they were all attracted to older women. Older men are not generally repulsed by naked young women.

We only found out later that the north end of Baker Beach is also the gay end of the beach. Apparently, Californians like to segregate themselves on the beach by sexual orientation. I had never heard of such a thing, but the more people I talked to, the more I learned that any nude beach in California will have a gay side and a straight side. This makes no sense to me since the point of a nude beach is supposed to be relaxation and enjoying the sun and water without clothes getting in the way. It should never matter what gender they sleep with since sex on any beach is illegal. For some reason, it matters in California.

We never saw anyone having sex on Baker Beach. The way the beach is set up, it would be impossible to do so without an audience. It is a straight beach without any coves or hiding places. You would have to climb the rocks on the north end, and that has to be a terribly uncomfortable place to have sex. It is also not at all private since people go there all the time to take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.

It occurred to me while we were there that this was the first time I had ever been to a nude beach with different types of naked people. My first nude beach was just Ryan and me. No one else ever showed up. My second beach was Lily, me and a bunch of lesbians. No men ever showed up. This time there were men, women and children on the clothed side. All genders, ages and races were on this beach. That's the way it should be. It was nothing like Hong Kong. This was the American way.

Old Ryan, New Home

This was going to be my turn to visit Ryan in Fuzhou, but since we just moved into the new apartment, we decided that he should come here to check it out. Usually when Ryan comes to Hong Kong, we go to a hotel. The old apartment was just too small for everybody at the same time. Staying in a hotel gave Ryan & I some time alone and also worked out for Lily & Kevin. Now that there is plenty of room for everyone, Ryan can stay here whenever he comes to Hong Kong.

Lily & Kevin were at work a lot, so Ryan wanted to test drive the apartment. His top priority was to have sex on the balcony, but that was never going to happen. It is certainly a big enough balcony. It is the biggest balcony I have ever seen in Hong Kong. There is plenty of room to do all manner of unspeakable things, but this is still in Hong Kong. Our building is not pressed against the next building, but we still have neighbors who can easily see our balcony when they are out on theirs. The balcony is big enough to have a party, but you are never going to have any privacy on it.

Naturally, Ryan suggested we wait until night time. Hong Kong is never truly dark at night. There are always plenty of lights on everywhere, but you could probably go unnoticed on the balcony with the living room lights off. So maybe there is slightly more privacy at night, but there are also far more mosquitoes. There are plenty of mosquitoes in the day time, more than enough, in fact. But night time is when they really come out in full force. Since this is mosquito season – anywhere between March and December is mosquito season – I would prefer to be as covered as I can when I'm outdoors at night. There are parts of my body that really don't need mosquito bites.