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At any time of year, a nice, long soak in a hot spring will leave your muscles relaxed and your skin feeling smooth. It’ll also leave your body feeling hotter than normal for some time after you get out, though, and while that’s part of the appeal in the winter, in the summer it’s just an unpleasant side effect of bathing in geothermally heated water.

That’s why in some parts of Japan that are famous for their hot springs you’ll see travelers walking around town wearing the thin, cotton kimono provided by their hotels as they take in the sites after a bath. A Chinese tourist at a hot spring resort in Taiwan seems to have had a similar idea, except he was apparently much more concerned with cooling down than staying covered up, as he decided do a little shopping wearing nothing but a towel.

Taitung is located on the southeastern coast of Taiwan. The town has a tropical climate with steamy, humid summers, but it also has hot spring baths, which continue to draw visitors all year round.

One such visitor, reported to be a tourist from mainland China, raised a few eyebrows recently. Obviously, you can only spend so long sitting in a hot spring before you need to get out and let your body cool down again, and this man decided to spend that time browsing for souvenirs. But while his recreation choice wasn’t so unusual, his attire definitely was, as shown in this video.

In case the stares from the other customers, and their considerably more substantial clothing choices, don’t make it obvious, this isn’t exactly normal behavior in Taitung. Not only did the man’s wardrobe consist of only a single towel around his hips, he doesn’t appear to have even wrapped it particularly snugly, since there’s still room for him to tuck a smartphone next to his exposed navel.

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Local media has criticized the breach of etiquette, even as Taitung shopkeepers say they’ve been seeing an increasing number of tourists strolling around in public in their bathing suits after exiting the hot springs. Residents have called such conduct disgraceful. Frankly, we’re not sure which surprises us more, that the man in the video seemingly didn’t feel enough embarrassment from the stares he was getting to put on a shirt, or that he didn’t feel enough pain from pebbles in the soles of his feet to put on some shoes.

▼ Seriously, isn’t that really uncomfortable?

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Sources: Liberty Times Net, Focus-Asia/Yahoo! Japan via Toychan
Images: YouTube/東森新聞 CH51 (edited by RocketNews24)