No disrespect to the Louvre or the Met. But sometimes you want something a little smaller, a little quirkier, possibly edible or potable or laughable. Here are three museums worth a detour on your next trip.

• Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum, Yokohama, Japan
Just south of Tokyo in Yokohama is this shrine to the noodle, packed with historic displays and artifacts (and more kitschy noodle-themed souvenirs than you can shake a chopstick at) but the best part is the curious amusement-park element, a large-scale, detailed recreation of Tokyo in 1958 (the year instant noodles were invented) complete with 10 famous (and fully-operational) ramen joints.
The official site is Japanese only. More info from Bento.


• Musée du Thé Mariage Frères, Paris
Venerable French tea purveyors Mariage Frères are known worldwide for their exquisite blends, but unless you happen to wander up the creaky stairs at their Paris boutique and tea salon, you're missing the whole story. Up here you'll find the official (if little touted) Tea Museum, a wonderland of canisters and maps, antique signs and curiously shaped cups from faraway lands -- all for your quiet (it's never crowded, and always free) perusal.
Website


• Museum of Bad Art, Dedham, Mass.
They're very serious about bad art at MOBA (their tag: "Art Too Bad to Be Ignored") -- just look at Peter the Kitty. The result is a stringently-curated tour of talentless creative forays from the last fifty or so years. Of about 250 pieces in the permanent collection, 20 to 25 are exhibited at a time, but the full collection is online. Exhibit coming in May: 'Hackneyed Portraits.' About eight miles south of downtown Boston.
Website

Think for a moment of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, of banishment, reconciliation, redemption, and you'll get the scope of Without a Map, the new memoir by Meredith Hall out next month.

It begins in 1965. Hall, pregnant at 16, is first shunned and then effectively banished by her parents and her New Hampshire community. She gives her baby up for adoption and goes wandering, penniless, in the Middle East. Ultimately she returns to New England and is reunited with both her parents and her son.

An extraordinary tale, made all the more moving by Hall's unsentimental prose and ample heart.

Shayla Su studied art, architecture, and ceramics. It wasn't until she took a trip to Venice in 2003, though, that she found the perfect inspiration to combine them all.

Among the wonders of Venice, she became enamored of the handbags displayed in the city's shops. Returning home, she launched what has become a signature line: over two dozen handbag vases. Her newest, Roses, may be her best yet.

But they all look good with a bunch of tulips, peonies, or even dried flowers. And it's a guaranteed hit with the fashionista in your life.