As more people become fully vaccinated and ready for travel, countries around the world are beginning to open up and loosen restrictions. Music festivals, bars, and clubs are slowly making a return. So are kink spaces like dungeons, swinger hotels, and sex-centric clubs where leather and latex dominate the dress code. We’re talking true hedonism; summer of love ’21.
Eva Oh, aka Mistress Eva, has been a bondage pro since 2011, when she left her vanilla corporate job to train at Sydney’s famous Salon Kitty’s dungeon. In the years since, she’s taken her enthusiasm for BDSM slave training and power exchange to select cities around the world. Currently based in Bali, Indonesia, Mistress Eva also runs the online BDSM space YouWillPleaseMe, hosts the Safeword Podcast and the #teakink webseries, and continues to tour the world for select engagements.
We hit up Mistress Eva for an extensive list of her favorite kink spaces around the globe, and since her travels have taken her pretty much everywhere, she also offered her favorite non-kink travel spots — from bars and restaurants to outdoor spaces and her favorite Bali locales. Let’s dive in!
Dungeons and Playspaces
Residenz Avalon — Berlin
This is one of my favorite places to play worldwide. Residenz Avalon is a massive standalone building that can be rented out entirely for yourself or your party. It has a diverse range of spaces that include a human pony yard and stalls and an underground dungeon of prison cells with CCTV access from the upstairs domestic quarters. It also has direct access to the river off of a small dock.
It is such a surprisingly picturesque spot for an industrial part of Berlin.
Alpha Inn — Tokyo
I keep returning to this very kitsch BDSM-themed love hotel in the center of Tokyo. It has definitely seen a lot going on within its walls and it can come across as a little dated and worn, but its many rooms, convenient location, and nice variety of kink BDSM furniture make it an easy and fun go-to for me when I’m in Tokyo.
Innana Studio — London
This beautiful and serene playspace belongs to my dear friend Adreena Angela. It is one of the most minimalist and modern spaces that I’ve gotten the pleasure to play in, and it’s conveniently located in north London. A range of BDSM furniture is surrounded by plants and thoughtful touches.
It’s a comfortingly devious space.
Kink Parties and Events
German Fetish Ball — Berlin
The German Fetish Ball is a heaving event held in Berlin each year. Kink community from across the world fly in for this multi-day extravaganza of parties, workshops, shows, and a bazaar of BDSM gear and fashion. I have yet to see another event that brings together such an international group of heavy fetishists like this does.
Klub Verboten — London
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQriDY0D7IO/
Dark warehouse spaces, brutalist dungeon furniture, and techno lead the way at this members-only kink club night in London. Their great passion for kink culture has also since expanded their offering to talks and non-club events that merge art, BDSM, political critique, and cultural education.
Kink Out — New York
The Kink Out crew is made up of some of the leading elders and activists of BDSM and sex work culture. They have held a massive event at MoMA PS1, rallied for sex worker rights, and host so much more that brings together kink, art, activism, and hedonism.
Department H — Tokyo
Tokyo’s grandest monthly kink gathering. Department H always serves up a raging latex-clad time with skillful and often fantastical performances. A lot of people come together and so many of them always know how to bring it, dress up and cause a sweet ruckus.
Kink Shops
Style Fetish — Frankfurt
My favorite BDSM furniture maker so far. Their showroom is outside of Frankfurt and although they do have distributors worldwide there’s nothing like seeing their intricate bondage devices, chairs, pillories, cages, cells, and more in the flesh.
The level of detail that goes into elements such as finger and head bondage attachments is too fabulous.
Le Boutique Bazaar — London
A luxury kink shopping event that is held a few times a year in venues around London. Custom latex, corsetry, millinery, hand-made lingerie, luxury leather, and avant-garde couture reign; and the community tends to use it as a fun opportunity to dress up as well.
Blackstyle — Berlin
This is such a convenient go-to in Berlin with a fairly massive range of heavy latex fashion, hoods, and bondage gear. They also have a really nice selection of heavy irons that includes balls and chains which is unusual for stores worldwide and delights me every time.
Kink and Sexuality Resources
UK Fetish Archive — London
The UK Leather and Fetish Archive is housed at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. They offer open access to a deep history of fetish, kink, and BDSM and they have an archive on my work as Mistress Eva too!
Project X — Singapore
Project X is a great resource and organization for sex workers and on sex work in Singapore. They have a couple of locations that you can drop in to for support and community if you are a sex worker or traveling sex worker in Singapore.
Tea
Plantation — Hong Kong
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQhvw8fA_AT/
My favorite tea shop in Hong Kong, their selection is bold yet elegant and their store hosts very thoughtful tasting events. I have also gotten some of my most favorite teaware from them – they stock unusual and minimalist pieces made locally and from China and Taiwan.
Tea Chapter — Singapore
This is where I send my submissives so that they can learn traditional Chinese tea service and ceremony for me. It is a traditional Chinese tea house, where you can go, order tea and pour it yourself with friends – but they also have some short tea ceremony courses that are quick and informative.
29B Teahouse and Ceramics — New York
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQjdL2zgqV8/
The tea list at 29B is stellar. The owners have such an intricate palette and that really comes through in the tea, cocktails, and food that they have at this seemingly casual yet smart teahouse in New York. Their selection of teaware is also impressive.
Museums
The Feurle Collection — Berlin
This is one of my favorite spaces to be in, worldwide. The Feurle Collection is a WWII bunker that houses a private art collection of contemporary art, imperial Chinese furniture, and Khmer sculptures that are lit in the most perfect ways. There is an incense ceremony room, they host gong baths and the enveloping darkness and curated way of navigating it are just perfect to me.
MONA — Hobart, Tasmania
I may have a thing for underground spaces. The Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania lives inside a hollowed-out cliff and the architecture is breathtaking. There is a labyrinth of exhibition rooms to be wowed in. I could write about this space for days… You must visit it.
Nature
Gordon’s Bay — Sydney
When I first started out as a Dominatrix I worked long days, sessioning with multiple and many clients all day most days. I loved it and learned a lot — but I would need to counterbalance the dungeon with Gordon Bay on my off days. It was perfect to sit on the wide rocks and swim across the cold waters.
Hangover Bay — Nambung, north of Perth
This is the beach that spoiled all other beaches for me. I am usually the only one there with the resident dolphins. The sand is white and pristine, and the water is still, clear, and sparkles. It’s definitely got a touch of my nostalgia attached, but it’s my favorite beach for just that reason.
Topanga — Los Angeles
This is definitely also nostalgia at work, but whenever I’m in LA I always rent a house on a high point of its hills, surrounded by quiet, with a wide view in Topanga. The picturesque solitude saves me from what is usually horrendous jet lag from flying in from Asia before getting stuck into LA’s offerings.
Restaurants and Bars
Gen Yamamoto — Tokyo
https://www.instagram.com/p/CNZgYUFJnx-/
A deeply delightful cocktail omakase bar in Tokyo. The clarity of the ingredients presented in their cocktail tasting menu is outstanding. Flavors sit more on the essence of single seasonal ingredients than the multiple layered cocktails that you may be used to. But that is where you can spot the nuance that they do so well.
Vespertine — Los Angeles
https://www.instagram.com/p/CP_X64IJLUf/
This may have been my favorite dining experience yet. Vespertine lives in its own site-specific structure in Culver City, Los Angeles. The attention to detail reminded me of being in Japan but within an American brutalist and meditative approach. They think deeply about smell, how you move through the space, the heat of the seat and so much more.
It may also have had the most on-point wine pairing that I’ve gotten to have so far.
Cafe Gray at Upper House — Hong Kong
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQvQM_dLpgY/
I don’t usually eat here, what I use Cafe Gray for is my first drink whenever I fly back into Hong Kong. I go to her top floor, look out onto the city below and the skyline across and feel instantaneously at home and in awe. She still gets me every time.
Bali, Indonesia
I travel a lot. Sometimes I can be on the road for months and other times I will travel for two weeks a month and then retreat to my house in Bali. These are the things that I do to relax and turn off there.
Mejan Bar x Desoner — Bali, Indonesia
A rickety shack on the beach that plays world-class electronic music by roving DJs every single sunset. I’ve been in Bali for years and to have this newish quality yet quaint spot come about for us is such a treat.
Nusantara — Bali, Indonesia
My favorite Indonesian restaurant on the island. They serve a seriously tasty menu of dishes from all across the massive Indonesian Archipelago and I’ll often take myself there and demolish their huge tasting menu very happily on my own. It’s run by a fantastic local restaurant and bar group (Locavore).
R4D, Room 4 Dessert — Bali, Indonesia
It is always such a delightful experience going to Room 4 Dessert. This place is helmed by Will Goldfarb and the team that he has created is so impressive and passionate. You can dive into their 21-course dessert tasting menu that starts with a tour of their edible garden and ends by their outdoor fire pit – or there are a la carte options available at the back restaurant as well.
Their cooking may be my favorite on the island.
Tangkup Waterfall — Bali
https://www.instagram.com/p/BosXEZ6gkpR/
I discovered this on a photoshoot and thanks to the photographer who scouted the location it is now my favorite waterfall in Bali. It is an easy but rickety trek in, and it is a smaller waterfall compared to some others – but it is so serene, gorgeous, and feels a little bit magical.
BAWA — Bali, Indonesia
BAWA are a great organization that works to save, protect and improve the lives of all animals in Bali. I foster with them when I get the chance, and their shelters have a volunteer program that is also available to tourists and visitors.
Cappella Ubud — Bali, Indonesia
Bali is a big island and so when I feel like heading north to spend time in Ubud I enjoy the very luxe and well serviced tented camp of Capella Ubud. The view from the Architect Tent and it’s pool are such a treat.
