-A Musee like Vodka-

Yes, the Louvre is amazing, and the impressionist art in the Musée d'Orsay (which I saw last Wednesday) is interesting (and often nude), but my solo trip today to the Musée Guimet and the Musée du Panthéon Bouddhique was refreshing.  It was like taking a sip of what you think is water, only to find out it's vodka.  

These museums hold collections of Asian art.  And as cliché as it sounds, cultures from the East still hold a certain exoticism for us Westerners.  We can't help it, because it's so different from everything our civilizations have produced.  According to the handy brochure they gave me, the Musée Guimet was opened in 1889 by Emile Guimet for the history of religions, but has since evolved into the National Museum of Asian Arts, covering everything from India to Japan.

So after sitting serenely in the tiny Japanese garden tucked inside the Panthéon Bouddhique, I went over to the Guimet to wander through giant stone sculptures of Khmer Indian art, ritual pieces from Nepal-Tibet, Buddhist Chinese paintings on silk, Korean pieces, and Japanese Buddhist sculpture and paintings from the Edo era.  Lots of elephants and multi-armed gods/goddesses, but many more interesting elements as well.

I'm already planning a return visit so I can eat lunch on those stone steps, listening to wind through the bamboo and water under a little wooden bridge.  This may not be the first museum on your list when visiting Paris, but I am definitely going at least once more before I leave this city.