Dismembering a chicken, riding a yak and other Harvest Holiday adventures

After all the paranoia, nothing at all happened on National Day, except for the day-long, mildly menacing display of military prowess in Beijing.

But that doesn't mean the holiday has been a complete loss. China turned off the rain machines, so I went exploring ... (And yep, I finally got to ride a yak. More on that later.)

Spent Sunday at Ta'er Si (or Kumbum, in T*b&tan), a monastery outside town that is the home of the Yellow Hat Sect, and the former home of the DL. It's one of the most important Buddhist monasteries, so the place was overrun with tourists.

We spun the pretty painted prayer wheels, stuck a yuan to a ghee-covered sacred rock (an offering that is supposed to ward of disaster, so fingers crossed), watched a monk in a temple courtyard making a mandala of dirt and seeds that would be washed away as soon as it was finished, a symbol of the impermanence of, I don't know, something or other ...

Then came Taco Night. (God, I miss tacos. Because you know who has never heard of the delicious perfection that is a taco? China, that's who. Pizza they can do. Hamburgers and KFC, they're all over it. I even had a bagel with cream cheese the other day. But tacos? Absolutely not.)

So we trekked to the foreign import store and spent a mini fortune on tortillas and black beans, made two kinds of salsa (tomato and mango!), dipped into Beth's supply of Spanish rice mix, and started a small toaster-oven fire in an ill-fated attempt to make chips. And I finally gave up my fruitless quest for meat that doesn't still have its head attached, and bought a chicken. At least they chopped off his feet, I thought. That was before I found his severed limbs conveniently tucked up, you know, inside him.

We named him Wesley. The 15 minutes or so I spent butchering Wesley (who I'd guess, judging from his scrawny physique, lived a life in somewhat less than the lap of luxury), trying to avoid his accusatory gaze, still haunts my dreams.

However, the tacos were freakin' delicious.

Alright, don't get impatient, I'm getting to the yak.

Monday, we headed to Qinghai Lake with a taxi driver who was swilling barley wine from a can while he drove. It was the first time that we've really gotten out onto the plateau, which felt a lot more like the rural China that I'd been expecting. The barley fields are in harvest, the hills are swamped in fall colors, and great herds of sheep and yaks are everywhere. As we set out, I told Beth that my mission for the day was to ride a yak. Truthfully, I was envisioning striking up a friendship with a random wild yak, hopping aboard, and perhaps riding off into the sunset. Turns out, though, I'm not the first tourist with a yen for yak-riding, so they were ready for me.

Oh, well. It was totally worth it.

And, yeah, the lake was beautiful, too.