Food at the Wedding

Now then the most important part of the wedding:



Trout mousse



Jelly of Watermelon with Shrimp



Tuna with Squid Mayonnaise



Fish with Lobster Sauce



This lamb was really beautifully prepared.



And the dessert was so good, that it deserves two pictures.



No pictures of the wine, even though these were great as well.

Congratulations to Ellen and Christiaan!

Ellen made an honest man of Christiaan yesterday! The moment supreme:



Congratulations to the bride and groom!

Barbecue

Being in France means that wine is cheaper than beer, great food is prepared everywhere and supermarkets are a Walhalla with wonderful cheeses, fish, meatz, etc. Here is just a very small sample of the foods we prepared on our little barbecue:







Not pictured: sardines, trout, sausages (many times), côte de boeuf.

Holiday in Europe

As soon as we arrived in Europe we took a holiday and went camping in Le Buet, near Chamonix, France. As you could already see in the previous post, the weather was not particularly warm and dry the first week, when Ellen and Christiaan were also there. One day of the days of the first week we went to Annecy to escape the rain and find romantic photo ops.



Also, art that cried out for interaction, a cry never ignored by A.



But of course one of our main purpose of the trip was hiking (wine and food being among the other main goals).





Here we are on the only overnight hike we did:



At this refuge we enjoyed great food and a beautiful sunset:



Finally two pictures from a refuge that was owned by a pâtissier:





... and one from a rooster that pretended to be the owner of another refuge:

Some like it hot...

Fortunately the weather has been rather hot since Ellen and Christiaan
left the camping. (Sorry guys!)

Almost gone

Bye bye China!

Bye bye 苏轼

We went to "that restaurant we went to on our first night" to square the circle, and yes, we had duck. They seemed to sense that this was our very last visit, as the food was better than ever! We will most certainly miss 苏轼!

Goodbye China Tour

We're back home, ready to cancel bank accounts and pack our bags. Here are just a few pictures from our trip, to be precise from Xingcheng:









One of the reason we went back slightly prematurely, was the food. The food on the road was rather disappointing, even though these two dishes were not so bad:

(Almost) goodbye China

And happy birthday to Adrie!

Hello from Beidaihe

Life is smiling at us, and we smile back.

Ik wou een foto van de pizza maken, maar nu is ie op

So predictable

We are getting kind of bored here, and are itching for a change of scenery. We had planned to fly out on Tuesday to see some more of China, but because we had to apparently pick up our salary on Wednesday, we had to cancel our tickets. We then thought about renting a car on Tuesday and staying outside Beijing. "But," said A to F, "I bet Number 2 will send us an email on Wednesday morning saying we have to pick up our salary between 10 and 10:30, so that if we are not in Beijing, we won't get it." And hence we did not rent a car, but stayed home.

At 00:24 today, we received an email giving us that exact time window -- 10 to 10:30 -- to pick up our salary.

Either we are getting too good at looking inside Number 2's head. Or our apartment is bugged. Either way, this is disappointingly predictable.

We are not even happy about having received our final salary. Just tired and sick of all this.

One more week...

It ain't over till the fat lady sings

As I think we may have mentioned, there seems to be some ambiguity about the payment of our final salary.

First, we had a major argument because the institute decided to ignore the fact that on August 1 we have worked here for 24 months, and insisted we should stay until August 31, and work 25 months for getting paid 24 months.

Then, this argument was miraculously resolved. In a meeting, Number 2 promised us to pay our last salary on August 2, and we would be allowed to leave after August 9. Following the advice of some friends, we emailed Number 2 a summary of our meeting.

Next, our university accounts got canceled (because, according to the university and us, our obligations here end on July 31, just not according to our institute). This happened despite us drawing attention numerous times to the fact that they would perhaps not be able to pay us after canceling our accounts. We pointed this out by email in May, in person in the meeting with Number 2, and again in an email to her minion two weeks ago.

After a phone call from Number 2 on Wednesday in which she said she could not transfer our salary now that our accounts were closed, we were kept in the dark for a few days.

Today we could not even enter our offices anymore, because our ID cards expired now that we have worked here for 24 months. We have visitor passes to get in. Since it is August 2, we sent Number 2 a friendly email reminding her of our agreed date for the payment of the last salary and saying that we assumed everything was OK since we had not heard anything.

We received a reply this evening. The dear Number 2 has been negotiating with HR and the financial department tirelessly on our behalf for three days. She will let us know on Wednesday where we can "pick up our salary".

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This is all very nice. We are glad that she seems to see no other choice but to pay us what they owe us. But unfortunately, there is another postdoc in the exact same situation as us. I don't think he made a big fuss as we did (although he did when he first arrived here and was told of the weird arrangement of postponing the payment cycle by one month). And he is leaving tomorrow...