David & Akbar

The second leg of my 2015 Grand North American Overland Tour has been to see friends. The public bus and train network covering the Greater Toronto Area, GO Transit, carried me just an an hour and a half along Lake Ontario out from Toronto and into the city of Hamilton. That's the town where Akbar and Sarah live.

As with previous occasions when I've called on them much of our time socializing revolved around simple pleasures: walks to parks around the neighborhood, sharing meals, and lots of conversation to catch up. The visit I've just ended coincided with the Thanksgiving holiday across Canada. The long weekend was the perfect time for the couple to select specific places for us to eat around the area for us to get good deals on good meals across a range of price levels.

Akbar & Sarah Finish Thanksgiving Dinner

The place we splurged when eating out was when Akbar and Sarah treated me to a full Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant in Burlington, Ontario, just next-door to Hamilton. (Not to be confused with the town of the same name I often visit in Vermont.) All the traditional dishes I associate with the holiday meal were on offer as buffet options: Yorkshire pudding, turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy--along with plenty of other choices I didn't have the stomach capacity to eat. Cleverly, the couple planned for us to go for our Thanksgiving dinner on the night of Sarah's birthday--a date on which the restaurant allows the customer celebrating their birthday to eat for free.

On the budget end of our dining we ate our breakfast one morning at the local branch of Ikea. I knew that the mega-furniture store usually has a cafe serving simple dishes such as Swedish meatballs. I hadn't realized that they also have a running daily breakfast deal. A plate of eggs and sausages goes for $1 CAD. There is an option to upgrade to a "deluxe version" for $2 which adds a couple of pancakes to the plate. I went for the first option: twice.

David Finishes Thanksgiving Dinner

The middle-priced (and most interesting, to me) of the places where we ate over my visit was one offering Chinese food a la the Subcontinent. Yet another Burlington restaurant, Hakka, offered a menu of nominally Chinese offerings prepared as they might be in Bombay or Calcutta. Just as Chinese food prepared in North America adapts ingredients to local taste in creating chop suey, fortune cookies and other dishes that would never be seen in China itself, the Chinese restaurants of India and Pakistan depart enough from traditional fare that the resultant offering is essentially a cuisine unto itself.

I strained to remember where I had tried "chicken corn soup" when Akbar ordered it. I finally recalled that the only times I'd eaten that dish was from a street cart in the old city of Peshawar. Though supposedly Chinese I don't think I'd ever eaten it anywhere over years when living in China, itself. I suppose it's perfectly logical, given that he's from Karachi and she's from Shanghai, that the local restaurant offering a fusion of their two cuisines would be their favorite place to eat.

Despite that I almost always see the both of them together, it's usually Akbar and I--the two guys--who are doing most of the talking. Any possible topic with which we share some level of experience or some curiosity about--from tales of paperwork woes with the Canadian immigration system, to life in Pakistan, to Ismaili culture--might come up. But, while over previous visits Sarah would usually listen in silently, this time she spoke up more--especially when the topic touched closer to her realm. There were a couple times she would chime into the conversation offering facts that were spot-on.

David at Ikea Breakfast

For some reason a couple demographic points came up with whatever topic Akbar and I were talking about. "What percentage of people across China speak Cantonese?" Sarah knew that: roughly 5%. Later, another number came up. "Which Chinese city has the largest population?" Sarah also knew: Chongqing. It was fun to be engaging with both of them.

The two have arrived at a different phase from when I last saw them. Sarah has finally finished life as a student herself but continues on at school in the role of instructor, teaching a nursing class once a week at the local university. On top of that she's now working full-time hours as a nurse practitioner at a nearby hospital. Conversely, Akbar's independent accounting work saw a huge cut when his main client ended their contract--but Sarah's new job has more than made up the difference in income. So, Akbar has resumed the role of student and is now studying to pass the exam that will give him credentials as a CPA.

Both of them have always struck me as having a contentment that doesn't require much materially. Their home is tastefully but simply furnished. A long walk around the neighborhood together is the standard way for them to finish their day. Now and again they might make a roadtrip to explore somewhere within driving distance for some days--New York City and Detroit were places they've vacationed since we last met--though it's really here in Hamilton they seem happiest.

I'm grateful that an accidental relationship that started off as pen pals, with Akbar and me sending each other letters and postcards as our earliest communication, has evolved into the deeper level of friendship and regular face-to-face contact we now share.

Hamilton City Bus

Thanks for hosting me once again and for picking up well too many dinner tabs, Akbar and Sarah! I'm sure I'll see you both again soon. Maybe somewhere beyond Onatrio, next time? Can the two of you make it out to Montréal before I finally move on from there?

Again, I'll finish this entry with the statistics for this journey around North America that I'm in the middle of:

Ticket Origin and Destination: Toronto to Hamilton
Carrier: GO Transit
Length of Journey: 1 hour
Price: $10.25 CAD = $7.94 USD
Total Trip Cost to this Point: $16.56 USD

Note: Though I'm trying to include an image of each bus or train I take along every leg of this current journey around North America with all of these entries I forgot to take a photo of the bus from Toronto to Hamilton. Instead, I've included a photo of the city bus I'm taking on my way out of town: Hamilton Street Railway's Route 2 which will connect me with a bus on down to Niagara Falls.

Next stop: Buffalo