21st Oct

OK, so I'm stuck here in Vancouver airport on an 8 hour layover.  So far I'm not impressed with the signage. The arrows to baggage claim were pointing into the door of a shop!  On the subject of baggage claim, I thought I was going to have pick up my checked suitcase and it wouldn't be automatically checked through to Honolulu.  But it turned out that it was.  This is weird since I'm pre-clearing US customs here - but apparently I can clear customs without my luggage. I'm really not sure how that's supposed to work.
Not only are the arrows on the signs pointing in strange directions, I can't find a map of the terminal anywhere - except on the YVR website.  The first thing I needed to find was a power outlet To plug in this laptop.  I roamed the airport for 30 minutes before finally finding what was obviously supposed to be somewhere for people with laptops to sit - only to find that they had stupid power outlets set into a depression at an angle - and my plug was too big to get into the depression - back to roaming the airport again until I found this place tucked away at the back of Tim Hortons.  Needed my timmies nyway - as there was no free meal on the plane and they wanted you to charge you about 12 bucks for  sandwich and a bottle of water.
The lack of airport maps is a problem.  This place is huge and my carry on luggage is heavy and I had to trudge around a while before I found the International arrivals hall where my friend will be arriving later.  There is supposed to be some sort of aquarium exhibition somewhere, but I can't find it - and the web site makes a bit deal about it without actually showing where it is anywhere on the on-line map.  I was going to take a photo of it to pretty this post up a bit.  But in the absence of being able to find it I took a photo of this totem pole instead: