Huis ten Bosch

Just northeast of Nagasaki along the Kyushu coast is Huis ten Bosch--Dutch for "House in the Forest" after Queen Beatrix's Netherlands palace--a bizarre and extravagant theme park. The "theme" here is the Netherlands...in general. Twice mired by bankruptcy, this lame but hysterical attraction was opened in 1992 by a Japanese entrepeneur (reportedly at a cost of 250 billion yen, or about 2.5 billion dollars at the time) and today reportedly draws visitors from all over East Asia who desire a sampling of the crassest Occidentalism. Among the greatest features are a "Dutch" restaurant street without a single Dutch (or even non-Asian, save for an Italian) restaurant, a Dutch cheese house with overpriced American cheese marketed as gouda, and a brilliant 3D film called "Mysterious Escher." Apparently MC Escher is Dutch, but the film doesn't pertain to his life; rather it details the exploits of a Dutch girl whose dog "Foofy" is sick as the film opens, and she must find a magic waterfall to save him (the contingency escapes me). It was filmed in Dutch and is dubbed in Japanese (with Chinese and Korean headset options, of course). Finally, one can relive the Great Dutch Floods by sitting in a chair and watching 800 tons (seriously) of water pour onto a windmill. No historical background is given, and so I have no idea when/if these floods even occurred.