Take-Out

I know we haven't said anything about Vietnam yet, but I had to share this quick story about how weird Singapore is. This morning I had breakfast at one of the dozen or so Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shops in the city and before I left I decided to try one of their tea lattes. I was meeting Lara at 9, so I asked for it "to-go" and after a wait, the counter girl brought it to me - in a paper bag. Oh, it was a regular paper cup and plastic lid like you'd get anywhere in the States, but she'd put tape over the sippy portion of the lid and put the whole thing in a paper bag. Now in any other city in the world I'd probably put this down to an odd little cultural difference about what "to-go" means, but in Singapore, known for its martial strictness about littering and gum chewing, I was suddenly paranoid that people weren't allowed to drink in the streets and I realized that of all the commuters I'd watched pass by the windows, not a single one had been carrying a cup of coffee. Being the rebel I am, you know I took that cup out of its bag and risked arrest by brazenly drinking it all the way back to the hotel. It was awesome. And I wasn't arrested.