What exacly you calling -fun- ?
Even mining can be fun, when there is a nice interaction. You can use miner restart, and mine helium, you can mine for someone other, you can try to join some mining faction.
Why mining- for beginner, it's very good source of starting money.
Also, your statment, about week of griding before real fun doesn't looks very promising... Ppl were spending months to get capital ships and upgrades for them, so don't expect, that money will fall from a sky.
