Huis Ten Bosch is easily reached by bus from Nagasaki. The highway cuts across steep-sided valleys and runs for several kilometres alongside Omura bay, where islands float like clouds on a glassy formless sea. Why one would make this trip, to visit a contrived Dutch theme-town, is difficult to say, but millions of people come here from all over Asia. On arrival, the trip immediately feels more justifiable, because some of the first buildings one sees, despite being mere hotels, are dramatic simulacra of period Dutch architecture.

Curiosity now combines with admiration, and so the attraction of Huis Ten Bosch begins to work on me. The size, detail, and overall niceness of Huis Ten Bosch are quite affecting. Japanese cleanliness combines with true urban planning, and a fundamental desire to create a place that is simply a pleasure to occupy.

Everything in Huis Ten Bosch is expensive, and by any good European standard of cool, it is just all too twee. Yes, but in a cool way, I think. All the town’s windmills are spinning, magically in the solid stillness of the air, but at least they point in the same direction. Huis Ten Bosch proves you can get away with anything, as long as you do it with sufficient style, or the courage of your convictions.

There is not an overhead cable in sight. There are no barking dogs. Hallelujah! There is no traffic. There is no discernible pollution. In fact, the canals are so clean that white mollusc shells can be seen growing on the submerged parts of the canal banks (I hope they are not replica seashells).

‘Do places like this really exist?’ asks Greta Scacchi.

‘Only in movies,’ answers Tim Robbins.

Occasionally a replica veteran car glides silently by, adding a 20th Century anachronism to the 17th Century dream. But let not anachronism be an obstacle. If you are wealthy enough you can buy a house here, with canal frontage for one of your boats. That makes it a real place, doesn’t it?

I pass a teddy bear museum, which features the world’s largest, at 500 kg. Why it is here, I do not know. I suppose there is no right place for a teddy bear museum. There is another teddy bear museum, just as inexplicably, in Stratford-on-Avon, famous more for its playwright than its Paddingtons and Poohs, I always thought.

I eat a late breakfast in the Chocolate House, then stroll further into the town of Nieuwstad. The drizzle drives me back into another restaurant, just beside the Franz Hals cake stall. I stifle a patronising smile.

Here at least, I really do forget that I am in Japan. I look out of the window and am momentarily surprised that there are so many Asians around today.

The flags droop damp and lifeless in Maurits Plein. I feel the need for art, so I hurry through the puddles towards the museum in Paleis Huis Ten Bosch. Here there is a exhibition of posters by Toulouse-Lautrec, who worked at the time of the first love affair between Japan and France. Under the central dome of the palace is a large mural by Rob Scholte that stylistically links Bosch (Heironymus, not Huis Ten) to Dali, to Peter Greenaway, to wartime newsreels. Just beside the door is an image of the unfortunate boy who is having this nightmare.

From a window, I look down at a formal baroque garden, designed over two hundred years ago by Daniel Marot for the original Paleis Huis Ten Bosch in Holland, but never built there. It is artfully tapered to enhance perspective and give an impression of space – an interesting counterpart to the Japanese technique of using ‘borrowed’ scenery to achieve the same end. Above the trees, I can also see the humdrum: factories and apartment buildings outside the perimeter of Huis Ten Bosch.

One room of this museum replicates another in the Rotterdam Historical Museum. Among its authentic touches is one that is particularly thought-provoking – some Japanese Imari ceramics, once exported to Holland, now back home in Japan (of a sort).

I can’t help finding the European rooms dark and oppressive by Japanese standards, and it is a relief to once again be outside, under a now brightening sky.

A little white rabbit character appears all over Huis Ten Bosch. For the purposes of professional journalism, I want to make sure I correctly identify it, so I stop three women and say ‘Excuse me. This animal, who is it?’ ‘Miffy,’ they all reply instantly, smiling. I thought so. I smile back and thank them. They tell me I am very welcome. I wonder if they know Miffy is Dutch.

I find an area in which various national stalls have been set up. Boomerangs are on sale in the Australian area, and they actually work. It’s gratifying to know we make such a valuable contribution to world culture. Items are being sold from one of the stalls by a process of auction, but it is neither Dutch nor Japanese auction. Here, the seller displays an item and sets a high price for it, then slowly lowers the price until a buyer, driven by the fear that someone else will bid first, snaps it up.

I am getting many looks again. Now, I’ve been mistaken for Dutch many times, even by Dutch people, so perhaps people here think I am just another authentic touch, a decorative automaton. Perhaps they are waiting for me to do something typically Nederlands. I can’t think of anything to oblige.