Language issues

China is the first place we've been on this trip where we can't speak the language at all and where English doesn't get us anywhere. For some reason I expected that more Chinese would speak a little bit of broken English. Not our experience. From the moment we sat in a taxi from the airport in Shanghai, our ability to communicate ceased completely. Made it difficult to convey that Kruti is vegetarian, to find specific addresses, and even to get to the bus station (which we thought everyone would understand). It's unquestionably not as much fun to explore a country when you can't speak the language and talk to the people; luckily we have friends in Shanghai and Beijing who can. Kruti and I want to start learning Mandarin when we're finished with this trip. Even if that doesn't happen, we're definitely going to make sure our kids learn Mandarin!