Driving test registration part 2!

In Wenzhou we bought a camera and had my documents translated in the morning and then in the afternoon headed to the Traffic Office of the Public Security Organ to register as wanting to take a driving test in China.

We arrived at a place you could only possibly reach by driving (a catch 22) in the outskirts of wenzhou. Once there we entered a huge compound of 10+ large buildings all concerned with this driving registration, a little intimidating! 

We entered the first building and got the forms, in duplicate obviously, and then were pointed to a health test building, oh dear! We went to the health test but first were sent to another building to get my picture taken! I already had passport pictures but this was impossible! They sat me down and took a digital picture and charged me for it before printing it out and giving it to me. We arrived back at the health check but they wouldn't do that until the picture was stuck on, and of course they did not provide glue! Outside we found some large bottles of cheap glue and a piece of stick people were using to apply the pictures so copied them!

The health test was straight forward, first some questions... in Chinese, height, etc, then a colour blind test, some numbers to read on odd colour back grounds, i know the numbers and so manage ok at saying that in Chinese, then a picture test, the picture is a horse and I know the word for horse so I get by there too! the woman is very impressed with my chinese! haha! Then off around the corner to a quick vision test, 2 seconds and that's done, then down an alley, up some dilapidated stairs to past some bedrooms into a small office where it is signed off and stamped and I am apparently health! Yay! 

Back to the head office and I took a number and queued up, my number was called so we went over to the desk and the woman took all our documents, read them for 10 minutes in detail and checked with her superiors that my residency permit was ok, luckily it was! Just as I thought we were in the clear she stopped, there was a problem, the passport had been translated wrongly, they had written the expiry as march and it was april, doh! She could read the passport and see the mistake but could not change it, and could not continue, damnit!

By now it was 3.10 and the office closed at 4.30! And if we failed we would have to come back to Wenzhou another day to try again!! Noooo!

we rushed back to the car and drove quickly across Wenzhou to the translation place, after some angry muttering and a repeat translation, carefully checked this time, we jumped back in the car and made it back in time, a different girl helped us this time and she finally accepted everything! home and dry! until her computer locked up..... at which point we had to wait yet again for another agent to enter our data. I think I might have been the first English person to register in this police station for driving because the U.K. was apparently not on the list of often used countries! 

After we had registered we were sent to another building to register for a test, we registered for a test and were then told to head to a random office upstairs for training! 

The test fee includes three lessons to teach you the skills needed before the test, the lessons are in Wenzhou and not on the same day, I couldn't miss three days of work for the training! Luckily the woman said I could miss the training no problem, I doubt anybody goes! It would probably be in Chinese anyway!! 
Upstairs and down a long hall was the only inhabited office, a bored looking woman asked for a usb disk (luckily I always carry one, or three!) and then proceeded to dump all 1500 possible test questions onto the USB in the most broken and awful English every for me to study! 

The broken English used is apparently exactly the same as in the test so i should simply learn and memorise all 1500 questions and I will pass! Easy! ... Crazy!