Healthy people get up early in the morning and go to the gym. They go to sleep early on the weekend to go hiking or kayaking or to do something involving an ultra-marathon.
They mock people who stay out partying for wasting their days, while we mock them for their kale salads and douchey Instagrams. Then they respond to us and the cycle continues forever.
But what about a middle ground, guys? How can we be healthy and fun simultaneously? The real question in Hong Kong is: What fun things are there to do at night that don’t involve alcohol?
A quick checklist of what’s on offer:
- Restaurants (but who needs the carbs?)
- Movies (ugh, another superhero thing)
- Standup comedy (better drunk)
- Open mic poetry (much better drunk)
- Ryze trampoline park (good, but closes at 9pm)
- Walk around the harbour (jks that’s wicked boring)
The list, my friends, sucks.
But don’t fret, I found something new and fun: Jet One Motion*. It’s a new-school video game parlour that’s part simulator, part augmented reality (look, I don’t know what augmented reality is either, but it’s pretty fun).
It’s located in LKF across from that 7-Eleven at the bottom of D’Aguilar, which used to be the drunk person spot until the new 7-Eleven became the drunk person spot.
Let’s talk first about the simulator, because if we go straight to augmented reality I’ll just start writing in caps. The best thing they’ve got is race car simulations. Coming from someone who once crashed a 1971 Ferrari (bad story, I’ll tell you sometime) I emphasise that smashing up a sweet ride is much more fun when it’s not real.
You’re perched in front of three giant screens as you zoom around a track, switching gears, revving the engine, and pretending you’re an F1 superstar except less European and obnoxious.
I tried a few different race tracks, drove a BMW, and went to town on a McLaren F1, another car I’ve driven in real life but just avoided crashing (good story, I’ll tell you that sometime).
I raced against an opponent who shall remain nameless – though her name rhymes with Nalison Nee – and she was so bad that even when I took a two minute breather to send mocking Whatsapps to my friends I still crossed the finish line comfortably ahead. “I’m here for Vettel!” I yelled afterwards as a bunch of customer service agents stared at me confused.
We then moved on to augmented reality, AKA virtual reality, AKA the Oculus Rift. If you’ve been following tech the last year you’ll know what I’m talking about; it’s a headset you don that projects images in front of your eyeballs and you can move your head around to look at different stuff.
Add in a pair of BOSE headphones and it’s kinda like you’re there, which is probably why billions of dollars is being spent on this stuff. I tried a rollercoaster and a loop-de-loop that made me feel super weird. But the real fun started when I played the horror game.
With a movie, you can look away and cover your ears. Not so with a headset and headphones – there’s literally nowhere to hide. I found myself in an abandoned hospital wandering around while zombies came at me and I screamed and ran away and almost threw the headset on the floor. If you want a different kind of date, try this.
*Note: I wasn’t paid or asked to endorse this. My views only. Coconuts Media is not liable for any… are you still reading this? What are you doing? Go back to the homepage or something. Nobody reads this fine print. Are you the kind of person who reads the terms and conditions on the Apple Store? You must have something better to do with your life.
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.
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