Hangovers get worse with age. Sorry, 22 year old Coconuts reader, but it’s true. Reactions range from mildly out of it to all-out shivering under the covers, direct-dialling McDonalds and dry heaving for nine hours.
My hangover-to-age graph is shaped like a V, beginning with horrid high-school 14 shot nights, plummeting in my early/mid-20s due to my invincibility, then spiking back up as I hit 30 and started to drink more of the hard stuff. Hey, life is stressful when you have responsibilities.
The old cures don’t work as well. Cold showers and greasy food leave me cold and bloated, and calling in a sickie is not an option when you’re presenting to the CEO at 10:15am. So I’m left shuddering and shaking to suffer in silence until six (say that fast 10 times).
And then I thought, why am I doing this? I spend a few k in a night on a few rounds of drinks – why don’t I do the same on something that would make me feel better. And instead of el cheapo 7-Eleven beers and a Tsui Wah hangover fix, it’s time to go luxury in both my drinks and their cure.
Enter the Mandarin Oriental, a place I knew for its sandwich shop and seeing Maggie Q there once. It’s right next to my office and is all about luxury. Plus I’m a fan™ (I’m reading the signage outside my window).
I stumbled over there to see what I could get for the same bill as last night (HKD2k). Plus, I figured this would be more pleasant than my original plan of going to a herbal remedy store and pounding bottles of ginkgo biloba.
After discussing the state I was in with the kind yet moderately bemused ops director, it was decided I would start with personal training. Because going to the gym when you feel like crap is a good idea. Actually, it is: sweat out the toxins and punish yourself for the night before.
The trainer watched me jog hopelessly on the treadmill for a warmup before deciding this was a no-go and we switched to the weights. This was old-school training: bench press, tricep dips, declining bicep curls, pull-ups. And I was pretty good with that because I’ll never look a targeted muscle training gift horse in the mouth, AND the CrossFit style high-intensity training would have led to some high-intensity vomiting.
The best part though – and why I think it’s better than your normal gym PT session – was access to the facilities afterwards. The Mandarin’s got a hot tub, cold tub, steam room, and sauna. And there was only one other guy there, just sitting around naked reading the newspaper. Ignoring him, I splashed around, took in some steam, breathed deeply and finally (FINALLY) began to feel better.
If you’re older but still party like a rockstar (we should be friends), still go out with as much vigour but less frequency, shine bright like a diamond twice a month or on an occasional weekday when after-work drinks turn bad, I suggest you invest as much $ into your recovery as your debauchery and you’ll be ok.
That’s Hong Kong moderation: hitting it hard both ways.
Yalun Tu is a writer based in Hong Kong. He wrote The Straight Man column for HK Magazine, and TV scripts for HBO Asia, Channel V, and Fox Movies Premium. You can contact him at yalun.tu@gmail.com or @yaluntu on Twitter.
