Someone barged past me and Rocco tried to stop them pushing me and the guy (a really big guy) pushes her really hard in the chest. Rocco's like "what the fuck" and he goes mental and pushes her even harder until she falls over towards the stage behind us. Then another guy complete unconnected to the first starts pounding her in the back of the head. It was fairly horrific. I attempted to stop him by pulling at his T-shirt - obviously this had absolutely no affect. Fortunately I resisted an impulse to jump on his back and wrap my arms around his neck in order to strangle him as the more realistic part of my brain reminded me that I am not Buffy and I in fact have no upper body strength. Although I did flex my muscle the other day and I'm fairly sure there was something there. Anyway, back to the action, so the pounding lasted about 30 seconds and this felt like an eternity. At some point Rocco gets pushed over the stage knocking about 30 beer bottles over and getting a bottle thrown at her head by another on-looker. She then manages to escape and I grab the bags and we all run outside.
Me and Andy have lost Rocco when we get outside and are frantically looking for her when we spy her with her hands clutched over her head and blood pouring down her back and her face. Rocco is calm as a cucumber and tells us she has lost her wallet. She needs it as this will tell us which hospital to take her to. So Andy ventures back in and fortunately finds the wallet straight away. I help keep pressure on the back of her head. Obviously now we know where we are going there are no taxis. We can see one but people are getting in. I'm still buzzing from the adrenaline so I decide to run over and steal it. I run up and say "we need this taxi my friends been attached" and wave my bloody hand in their faces. We get the cab but the taxi driver doesn't look impressed. Andy tells him where to go but he wants to go to a closer hospital. We remain stubborn as Rocco says they know her at the hospital she wants to go to. So eventually he sets off and then gets stuck behind another taxi. He just sits there. Me and Andy are getting pretty stressed by now as we have no idea how serious Rocco's head wound is. Rocco is obviously somewhat preoccupied with bleeding.
We make it to the hospital and walk in and are taken straight to a room. They calmly ask a few questions such as name and weight and what happened. Rocco answers and then the doctor takes a look. They clean it up a bit and then the doctor says to the nurse "get the staple gun". Rocco's eyes widen and she says "would this be a good time to tell you I'm scared of needles". Andy says he is too and leaves the room. The staple gun is about as bad as it sounded. After 14 staples Andy returns and we're told to wait for the insurance company to call to ensure Rocco can have a cat scan.
While Rocco speaks to worried friends, me and Andy explore. We discover that the hospital has a yurt. We see what the doctors having been teaching. The white board says that endorphins produce a happy face and adrenaline produces a fuzzy face. Filled with a greater sense of confidence that the doctors know what they are doing we steal some tea and go back to Rocco. Around 4am everything is sorted and we drop Rocco off at her hotel with a large bandage around her head and slightly bloodied pink and purple flowery shirt (kindly given to her by the hospital - though they did explain that when she came back for a check-up she should return it).
After such an exciting night I have trouble sleeping. I ask DD if I can have the day off at 8am because I've been invited to a music festival. She agrees and I decide I deserve a lie-in. The first lie-in I'd had in 3 months. I wake up eventually and go for eggs benedict and a proper cup of tea (twinnings English breakfast with milk)! Feeling satisfied I venture off to the festival which is pretty far out of town. I arrive and am informed by Will who I am meeting that the festival is dry and could I sneak in some booze. I wander around aimlessly for a while until I find a shop selling alcohol. They don't sell anything I recognise and most of the bottles look too big to sneak in. However I find some small ones and I ask the man what it is. He tells me and I am none the wiser. I ask how much and he says 4 yuan for 2. This is about 40p. I start to doubt if the bottles actually contain alcohol but I buy them anyway and then head to a toilet to sample my purchase just in case. A quick whiff is enough to tell me that I defiantly have alcohol. I stick both bottles in my belt like guns and don my coat. It's boiling outside so I kind of wish the coat wasn't necessary. I head off to find a taxi to take me to the festival and discover I can't remember where the train station is. I wander for a while constantly reminding myself that people are looking at me funny because I'm white and not because I have two bottles of ridiculously cheap spirit concealed in my coat.
I make it in and meet up with Will and his friends. One of whom is a teacher at their school and is Chinese. I show her the alcohol and she says that it is 72% proof and sometimes she uses it as disinfectant. We watch and wander and I really enjoy myself. The festival is fairly standard but minus some of the drunken antics and a lot less cross dressing though a fair few funny hats and some flags. I did see someone dressed as chopper from one piece though which made me smile even though he is probably the worst character.
We have a dance and a jump and even a sing along at one point when the Chinese version of Green Day did a cover of 'you are my sunshine'. It's about this time that my phone runs out of battery. We stay till the end and then head home. We get the subway and I leave the others as I live in the middle of nowhere. I get to Wangjing East which is where the last part of my journey begins to discover that I have missed the last train by 4 mins. So a taxi it is, except there are no taxis. I wander for ages until I find one and get home at 11.40pm. I get to the door and find it is locked and the key has not been left out for me. After overcoming my guilt at having to wake everyone up I ring the door bell. No one comes so I give it another go. Still nothing. I do a bit of banging. I try a shout. I go round the back and repeat my front door tactics. I then sit in the porch for a while weighing up my options. I can keep banging or I can go back into town. My phone has died and I have no ones numbers however I know that I have Will's number on Facebook so if I could just find a computer.
I get a cab back. It takes 40mins. I go to the wrong place and get another taxi to Sanlitun which is where we went out the night before. On the way we pass Rocco's hotel and I remember they have computers in there so I yell "stop" and rush to pay and get out. On the internet I realise that I don't know any of my proxy sites as they are on my phone and saved on my laptop so facebook is out of the question. I then attempted to contact anyone and everyone I can find online by other means. Hotmail, googlemail and skype. Eventually Sam comes on skype and I get him to access my facebook and tell me Will's number. I call Will from the hotel's phone and wake him up. I explain the situation and he say's he'll have a think about what I can do. I have no passort so hotels and hostels are out. Will says I can stay at his and he and his girlfriend could check in to a hotel but I don't feel comfortably making them do this. He suggests asking the hotel if they have a charger. I had until this point felt this was pointless as I have a Sony Erickson and I can't imagine anyone having a charger for it. However it turns out hotels have these nifty universal chargers and I get some power back in my phone. After waiting 20mins of course. I try calling everyone I know (Andy and Alex) and get no answer. My phone dies again. I try again and 20mins later I ring Rocco (the only other person I know) - I had not wanted to call her in case she had a horrible headache and hated me forever however she was fine about it and at 4am I finally put my head down on a pillow and got some sleep.
At 8.30am I'm up and heading home. I return to the house to be told I'm incredible stupid "why did you think you would be able to come home at 4am?" I explain that I text her at 4am because that is what time I sorted myself out in town and that in fact I got home at 11.40pm the night before. DD still thinks I'm an idiot but she didn't seem to know what I should have done differently.
At 4pm I find that the rabbit has died. I'm incredibly sad about this as she was my first friend. It appeared that no one had feed her in my absence and she had eaten some newspaper, an ikea pencil and my watch. Captain Sam Zigga Zappa esq will be sorely missed and never replaced in my heart although physically she will be replaced as Niu Niu really likes rabbits.
