Guys, guys, the accents. They're amazing.

No really, some of the accents here are really cool. They sound like the really exaggerated ones in cartoons, except they're real. So I'm in Vancouver! Yaaaaaay, Vancouver! I got Canada money! Except now I only have a coin, since I exchanged stuff. :P So I got off of my first plane to face a seven hour layover in YVR. On the advise of two very nice ladies working at the airport, I took the train to the Richmond Center for shopping. Before I got on though, I took a walk through this cool looking park they have going on alongside the road.

*searches through bag for phone to upload pictures; can't find anything because the bag is too big. This is not the first time. Or the second.*

Awesome green wall thing, just outside the train station

The park is literally right outside the airport

And has some local artwork

It goes on for probably about a quarter mile, with scattered benches.

The airport itself was really cool too. They seem to really like fountains. Heres one example I came across.

a little waterfall on either side of you as you go down into customs

 So at the Richmond shopping center I wandered disappointingly familiar stores and went up to the food court to acquire some lunch (and my Canadian change.) The very nice man at the counter (so far the Canadian stereotype has been pretty accurate) got me into a conversation while my "American and Korean fusion steak plate" was being made. Turns out he lived in a very rural area of China (not so surprising, I'm pretty sure the population here is half Chinese) and had been to Beijing. However, this was in 1995, when apparently the sky was still blue. He says he wants to go to San Diego someday to see the cool marine life. Represent.

Richmond Center being all cool and sustainable

I was disappointed there were no mounties, but there were a lot of police officers on bikes. Even in the airport. in fact, I think I only saw them on bikes. New modern-ish mounties?

All their walk signs are bad-ass. You can't walk across a street in Vancouver without swag.

So after lunch and a little bit of browsing, I hopped back on the train to the airport. The line at security was "really busy" according to one of the attendants, but not so much so that I didn't get a personal conversation with her and the security guard checking boarding passes. Maybe Canadians aren't so much really nice, as much as they really like to have conversations.

So here are some more pictures of inside of the airport. Stephanie, you're not even in China yet and you're already taking too many pictures. Stop it. Bad.

Told you they like fountains.

Woah, that's a big fountain.

Wait, it doesn't end yet?!

It keeps going!

And there's the end. Woah, fancy.

Fancy aquarium dedicated to Vancouver's kelp forests and fishy biodiversity

@Anna Kellogg - I know you'd like this. In fact, I'm pretty sure this whole airport is pretty much your style.

Update: So the plane is apparently overcrowded, so I decided to be a good person and volunteer to go on the next one (mostly so I wouldn't arrive in Beijing at 1 AM.) When I asked what time it was, the guy at the counter told me that it was tomorrow, but they'd give me a hotel and about $200 in vouchers or something like that, so I was like, yeah, that sounds cool. But what time does it get there. He had to look it up, but it turns out it's the same flight as today, so it'd get there at 12:20 Monday. Unfortunately that wasn't an option (I have to check in tomorrow,) so my attempt at selflessness failed. Sad. I totally wasn't doing it for the free stuff, more time in Vancouver and hope for a convenient time. Nope.

BTW, the plane is still late.