Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center

Tucked away inside a residential apartment complex, the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center is worth the extra effort it takes to find it.

The museum exhibits posters from the Maoist period of communist China, with a large focus on the Cultural Revolution. The museum's founder, Yang Pei Ming, started collecting the posters as a hobby and now shares his collection with others as he feels the posters "serve as a valuable historical document and provide an idealized account of a key period in global history". While not a huge museum, the museum is easily worth the small 20 rmb entrance fee.

The gift shop located inside is also full of gems. Featuring both original posters as well as reasonably priced prints, you can happily pick up your own piece of history. I was particularly drawn to the Shanghai Calendar Girl prints.

The museum is open daily from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm.

Address:
Basement, Bldg B
868 Huashan Lu, near Zhenning Lu
Xuhui district
 徐汇区华山路868号B号楼,近镇宁路

Shanghai Urban Planning Museum

The Urban Planning Museum, not surprisingly, displays Shanghai's urban planning and development. While there are a few exhibits of interest (I particularly liked the one on the Bund development over the past 100 years), the real reason to make this museum a spot to visit is for the large scale model of the entirety of urban Shanghai, showing existing buildings and approved future buildings.

The massive displays takes up the entire third floor. I had fun trying to spot our apartment in this replica of our neighborhood.

For those interested in urban planning, this museum is worth a quick stop, especially considering its convenient location just off People's Square. 

Admission: 30 rmb/person

Address: 100 Renmin Da Dao, near Xizang Lu
上海城市规划展示馆, 人民大道100号, 近西藏路

Xi'An: Han Tombs

I took a course on Egyptian civilization in college and became obsessed with Egyptian history, especially the burial procedures. I mean, what's more interesting than removing a brain through your nostril? For my birthday one year, I even forced Matthew to take me to the King Tut exhibit in Philadelphia. But I still dreamed of visiting the pyramids and seeing the tombs for myself, filled with treasures once believed to be needed in the afterlife. While I haven't made it to Egypt yet, I did recently get to enter an Emperor's tomb, and it just so happened to be in China.

About 20 km outside of Xi'an sits the Yangling Mausoleum of the Han Dynasty. Built in 153 AD for Liu Qi and his empress,  the tomb covers an area of 20 square kilometers (4,942 acres) and is comprised of the emperor's tomb, empress' tomb, burial pits, a ceremonial site, human sacrifice graveyard and criminals' cemetery. I'm sure your ancestral burial plot also has those last two items.

While you can't enter the actual tomb (boo), you can explore the outer pits at China's first underground museum. The tomb contains around 50,000 doll-sized terracotta figures depicting humans and animals for use in the afterlife. The museums sits on the excavation site and has a glass floor so that you can look down on the ongoing excavations.

Even without any mention of brain removal, the Han Tombs are definetly worth a visit if you travel to Xi'An.