Japan’s Huis Ten Bosch Theme Park Is Opening An All-Robot Kingdom

A theme park in Japan is preparing to open a “Kingdom of the Robot“ land run by more than 200 androids who will cook, bartend, serve and bus tables for visitors. 

The park is Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki, and its robot realm will open in July, Hideo Sawada, president of the theme park’s operating company, told the Nikkei Asian Times. 

A robot prototype practices his cooking skills. 

      

You may have already heard about the robot hotel inside the theme park, where animatronic women and T. rex dinosaurs help guests check in for their stays and even carry luggage, along with human backup. 

The forthcoming robot kingdom is intended to cut costs and serve as a testing ground for new robot technology, the Nikkei Asian Review says. 
“Robots will arrive in this kingdom one after another, and the time will come when those technologies will be in use worldwide,” Sawada said. Whoa.

But the weirdest part is that this isn’t even the theme park’s strangest quirk. Although located in Japan, Huis Ten Bosch was a built to look exactly like the Netherlands.
Yup, we’re talking windmills, tulips, clogs and canals... in Nagasaki. Check it out:

Paolo Negri via Getty Images 

  

 

Huis Ten Bosch looks just like a 17th-century Dutch village, a nod to an old Japanese trade agreement with Dutch sailors from the 1600s, Atlas Obscura explains. 
While roaming streets of neatly-organized tulips and canals, visitors can also witness a show that re-enacts Holland’s historic “great flood” and tour a model of an authentic Dutch sailing ship.
...And soon, a robot skipper may join them, too. All aboard!