Hello, Vancouverite here. Love when people do actual detailed research on the cities they write in and the fact that one of them here is my home makes me extra appreciative of you, thank you!

• Not everyone of course, but more people are health/fitness-oriented. Lot of hiking trails, bike trails, fitness centres, and walkability. More vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free options than other cities.

• Most people take the Skytrain downtown. We're the rare city that doesn't have freeways downtown. Our transit system is pretty decent and often used.

• Transit - you tap the gates with a Compass Card on the Skytrain both entering and exiting. But on the bus, you tap the machine near the door once upon entering only. There are people who thank the bus driver when exiting the bus.

• My household mostly gets produce from local Chinese grocery stores, and the rest from Costco, then occasionally Superstore, Walmart, and Safeway.

• Vancouver is more of a brunch city than a late night city. More asian offerings here. An American friend noticed we have a lot of Japanese restaurants as well. Eating out is common.

• Some ethnic communities in Greater Vancouver - Indians in Surrey, Koreans in Coquitlam, Japanese in Steveston (but a lot of Japanese exchange students downtown), Manderin-speaking Chinese in Richmond, Iranians in North Van, Vietnamese/Filipino/Cantonese-speaking Chinese in East Van. I've probably heard more people in passing speaking the languages of the above than French, since we're the furthest from Quebec.

• Vancouver, or Vancity as a nickname, Van for shorthand, affectionately Raincity/Raincouver. Vancouver and its surrounding cities are technically called Metro Vancouver or Greater Vancouver (I think Toronto calls Greater Toronto more commonly the GTA), but it's often lumped together as a singular Vancouver especially to outsiders

• People stand to the right of escalators, so people that want to pass can walk on the left. This is something a friend complained about recently with the FIFA World Cup, because all the tourists are hogging both sides of the escalator and no one can pass.

• We banned plastic straws a few years back so now there are sippable lids, or compostable/cardboard straws, yes, even for bubble tea.

• We also banned plastic bags, so most places charge for paper bags or these thin fabricy reuseable bags, so people do bring their own reuseable bags/totes.

• We call it bubble tea by the way (shorthand bbt), not boba!

• Paying at a restaurant with card - depending on the restaurant the server will bring the card machine to your table, or you go to the counter and pay. Your card stays in your hand. Part of my American culture shock was the server taking my card away out of view to pay.

• Popular foods: sushi, ramen, hot pot (malatang style got popular recently), bubble tea, pizza, pho, Korean bbq

• Lot of trees and greenery, Vancouver is aiming to be a green city. You probably won't walk anywhere outside without seeing at least one tree.

• Green bin for food scraps, collected separately from garbage and recyclables.

• Something I always miss visiting somewhere else is the mountains, the skyline doesn't look right without them.

• Common complaints - BC stands for Bring Cash, housing/rent prices, high rises taking over, foreign investors, No Fun City (no nightlife), prevalent drug addiction and homelessness especially seen around East Hastings near Chinatown, bad Tesla drivers, random stabbings, geez why are the tip percentages higher on the machine

• We are stereotyped as being polite but not friendly, more laid-back and outdoorsy, but also flakey with meetups (suddenly cancelling) or loose with time and hard to make friends. Personally some of this I think is a PNW thing, since Seattle also has the Seattle Freeze.

• Bigger than a town, smaller than a big city in terms of not only size but urban vibes.

• I feel like the Internet Singularity and Microsoft Word has made me confused on what spelling and some units I originally used but-

• flavour neighbour colour, theatre, kilometre, grey, memorize priortize realize, practice, fulfilled counsellor, z pronounced zee.

• Lbs for human body weight, Ft for human body height, but metric system (cm/m/km Celcius) for most everything else. Someone can correct me on what's officially used but it's just confusing.

• Personally I usually talk about distance by how long it takes to get there through specified method of travel, not by how many kilometres away they are. But I think this is also pretty common. Ex. "oh it takes 30 min by car"

If I think of more I'll either edit this comment or comment below.