An amusing evening...

Ok, remember the birthday post?

What you you mean you don't?!? It was the last post!!

Yeesh... you're still a tough crowd. ;)

No, we weren't reenacting the 'catch the fly' scene from Karate Kid. :) Wax on... Wax off...

This is Sokun. You may remember him from a previous post or two (or not, being that you even forgot the last post). He's one of Aidan's best friends. As for the birthday thing, well... it's Sokun's birthday! That means we got to go out and do fun cool stuff to celebrate.

A little bit of background - Sokun is Theavy's son. Yes, that's two birthdays very close to each other. Nice.

No octupi were harmed in the making of this soup... oh, who am I kidding?!?

We started our journey at a place called Lucky Pho (pronounced 'fuh'). They serve mostly pho soup, but also have french fries, and lovely, lovely banana shakes. Mmmm...

My wife had the Kraken special. This is where 'lucky' gets its name. The chef is lucky not to be snagged and dragged into the pot by all the tentacled creatures. Truly, it's a masterpiece of fishy wonder. After Jess finished her don't-eat-this-after-watching-Finding-Nemo surprise, we all piled into 2 tuctucs and headed for a place called Diamond Island.

Awesome.

Hmm? Are there diamonds? No, but it glitters!




No, seriously. The island is full of amusement-park-like attractions. There's games, bumper cars... the works.

A chance to intentionally hit things with a car... Aidan was in heaven.

That's right! I've shown you a water park, and now you can see an amusement park! There weren't any large mice in tuxedos or dresses running around (*cough* Disney *cough*), but there were some Angry Birds.

Like you expected anything else by now. ;)

Yes, even I got into the action. Yes, I woke up sore. ...and yes, I feel old.

We hit the bumper cars with a vengeance. Sokun rode with me, and Aidan hopped in with... Saraun, our tuctuc driver. What? Who better to play bumper cars than someone who actually drives in Cambodian traffic? Trust me, they are very similar. Hey, even I learned a thing or two! I was pulling hairpin turns and driving into oncoming traffic just like the Khmai!

Hands down, Sokun's favorite ride!

 

From there, it was onto the roller coaster. It wasn't very large, but it was fast. Aidan and Sokun could even ride without adults.




Yes, there actually are safety rules here, even if the guy enforcing them is asleep most of the time.





We looked at a couple of other rides - one where you got slung around in a giant ladle, and another where you stood up and held on for dear life as the machine attempted to EJECT YOU thirty feet into the air.

We skipped those ones. :)

Wheeeeee!

We hit the Angry Bird bumper cars next. Yeah, I know... but believe it or not, the bumper cars were the safest rides, barring the little kiddie ones.

Birds of Anger! Fear the fierce orange shirted one! His tuctuc hair only feeds the sheer awesomeness of his driving skill!

Of course, that didn't mean the kids were safe. Often, they tried holding onto each other's car, or hopping off and hoofing it. Equally as often they were hit by someone else. Might've been some kid in an orange shirt. Maybe.

Sokun had an absolute blast!

Ok, so "Ryan," you ask, "what does all this really mean? Deep down?"

Why, I'm glad you ask!

For Sokun, this night meant something truly special. He was blessed, and like many children, will go on to appreciate and look forward to his birthday every year (and will probably want to keep going back)

Ahh, but for Aidan... for him, it meant something else entirely. You see, he's been through quite a lot - bullies, broken limbs, children stabbing at him with forks (yeah, that sucked a bit), as well as several tragedies close to home. He's not been allowed to be just a kid, you know? He's like a little 7-year-old adult. At the amusement park? He laughed. He screamed. He ran over people.

Essentially, he was a kid. Just a plain ol', happy-go-lucky child. He got just a little bit of that great childhood he deserved back, and it was truly awesome.

As Aidan says, "They have AWW cola here! (A&W Root Beer)

How did we top things off? With root beer floats, and Aidan giving Sokun a present.

How's that for a happy birthday? See you next time!