Expo 2025
We went to Expo 2025 in Osaka back in July. It was a pretty cool experience, and something I would definitely recommend going to see (although there’s not much time left for the Osaka edition).
I was honestly surprised with the scale of the event. I had seen a few photos, but it really was a massive site with a lot of pavilions. Not every country builds a dedicated pavilion: there were common pavilion areas with conference style booths, but also plenty of countries not represented at all (looking at you NZ).
We managed to see about twenty pavilions over the two days we visited Expo. I think everyone has different favourites, but I particularly enjoyed Germany & Malaysia as I felt they best followed the theme of “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”.
Germany had a very interactive pavilion where you held a little character up to parts of the exhibition and it would explain more about their technologies, plans, and vision. Lots of cool ideas, and it really felt like a future looking society.
I also thought the Malaysia pavilion was good as it celebrated diversity between the different regions and also showed their plans for the future. I liked that they had fake foods (similar to what you see in a Japanese restaurant), but showcasing the dishes from the different parts of the country.
Lots of the other pavilions were good, but were less inspiring and more just vibes. France and Brazil in particular felt more like art projects than exhibitions, while India and Turkmenistan had a wild energy that is hard to put into words.
It was just fun to walk around the event as there was still plenty to see and do without going into to the pavilions. Being Japan, there were quite a few cool souvenirs to buy. I was quite happy to get an Ico-Chan gatcha!
We went in the middle of July, so it there was a fair amount of waiting in sweltering 35 degrees heat. For no apparent reason, the lines for the pavilions were much longer the second day, so we only got into five pavilions compared with 15 on the first day. We avoided the pavilions with a queue of more than 20-30 minutes, but that was nothing compared to the queue for Italy which was 3 hours long.
Despite the heat and the annoying lottery system for some pavilions, we had a great time overall. It was a quick stopover for us, so we didn’t do too much else in Osaka this time but we did visit the new Grand Green Osaka that recently opened in late 2024. It’s a huge new green space in the middle of the city, and it’s integrated very well into the surrounding shopping area and transport hub. It’s a really nice piece of urban design and definitely worth checking out if you’re in Osaka.
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