Recently, I've been thinking about the good times I had in the San Francisco AMPs (Asian Massage Parlors).

There are many AMPs in San Francisco with names like Lee's, Sunflower and Golden Flower.  I went to one called Golden Flower many times in the early 2000s.  

When you ring the bell at the entrance, the owners watch you through a one-way mirror to assess if they'd let you in.  If you're not Asian, there might be a chance you'll be turned away.  

Once you're in, you're asked to "sign in".  Most people, including me, wrote some random name.  

Then, you sit on a sofa.  Opposite the sofa about 5 meters in front of you is a sofa where the girls sit.  You're looking at each other.  There's usually 10-20 girls.  Sometimes as high as thirty.  Some might give you the eye or try to get your attention or giggle or act stupid.  A vast majority were Korean.  

This is before cellphones were invented so they're not staring at their phones.  It's intimidating looking at each other on the sofas.

Lemme tell you.  Many of the ladies were FREAKING HOT, like K-Pop idols.  The only thing I can compare it with are the high end saunas in Macau.

Once you pick a girl, she takes you to a room where you shower alone.  Once she returns, she gives a short lame massage and then, a quick reminder it's $150 payable after the deed.  Usually, CBJ following by mounting.  

The performance is quite mechanical.  Don't expect stellar service.  BBBJ and DATY are highly unlikely.

Golden Flower was in a busy section of San Francisco.  It's hard to believe it operated so openly.

Those were the good old days when the internet first began so lots of Asian guys made money in tech companies and came here to splurge.

Interesting to hear that SF parlors had a enough girls to do a lineup experience. Actually surprised at the pricing for 20 years ago. Before COVID you could go to AMP for FS for cheaper then that, but then not talking about bay area inflation. But if it was during the tech boom then guess it makes sense.

Golden Flower was amazing!!

When I was younger, I had a sales job. My boss would incentive me by taking me to GF.  First, he would take me to karaoke rooms but when our team started to do real good, we went to GF after.  You're right, the waiting room was super awkward and the lack of phones made it too apparent, however most of the time we were drunk so it was fine.

I wish I knew now that you could sign in with a fake name!!

I hit up a few AMPs in SF around that time too, though I mostly stuck to ones like Sunflower. The whole vibe was wild, ringing the bell, feeling like you’re being sized up through that mirror, and then the awkward sofa stare-down with the girls. Gotta say, some of those ladies were straight-up gorgeous, but yeah, the service was pretty robotic. I remember picking a girl, getting that quick shower, and the massage was basically just a formality before the main event.

Man, those were some wild times, huh? I remember hearing similar stories about places like that in SF back in the day. It's crazy how much things have changed now with the internet and all, but those old-school AMPs had their own vibe. Definitely a different world back then without phones and everything being so discreet. It was like a mix of nostalgia and weirdness.