China’s largest virtual reality theme park is now open in Guizhou

Forget Shanghai Disneyland. The Oriental Science Fiction Valley is the future!

Once you finish visiting China’s biggest cabbage statue in Handan, why not pop over to Guizhou province where the country’s largest virtual reality theme park is finally open.

The Oriental Science Fiction Valley on the outskirts of Guiyang greeted its first visitors on Sunday, inviting them to travel to the future, fight dragons, fly to space, and even meet extraterrestrial life, all while enjoying the comfort of oversized headsets.

Built by the Shenzhen-based Oriental Times Media Corporation at a reported investment of 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion), the park covers an area of 2,000 acres; however, much of that will be used to house a virtual reality movie-making studio and a research and development center.

Inside the park, visitors will be given VR helmets and other gadgets to help them interact with the environment. They’ll also be able to ride China’s first virtual reality roller coaster and other similar attractions that are presumably more fun than they look.

Meanwhile, one of the main attractions is a 53-meter-tall Transformers-esque statue. Apparently you can bungee jump off the robot’s arm.

The park is being cast as just one sign of how the impoverished province of Guizhou is being transformed by high tech. Already home to the world’s largest radio telescope and a sophisticated surveillance system, the province is also where Apple will store iCloud data in China.

[Images via ChinaNews]