What to Expect at Osaka Expo 2025

The World Expo 2025 is in Osaka, Japan until October. If you get a chance to go see it, do so. We were lucky to go in April, when our cruise stopped in Osaka for an overnight stay. We decided to spend the day there. We bought advance tickets before we left Canada, but friends of ours ordered tickets online on the same day.

What follows is Osaka Expo pavilion highlights. 

The first pavilion we visited was Poland. They had a 3D printer in the front of the pavilion that were printing toy motorcycles, castles and dragons.The pavilion itself was made of wood and it looked impressive. Inside, they were cultivating seeds of various herbs. They used interactive kiosks to educate visitors. There was a grand piano in there but no one was playing it. I heard they were staging pianists playing Chopin music. Frederic Chopin was a child prodigy and grew up in Warsaw, Poland.

The Osaka Pavilion was the first pavilion we saw when we entered the Expo. It was near the East entrance. There were two entrances at the Expo, East and West.

From there, we walked around and admired the architecture of some of the world's pavilions before going into any of them.

Ireland Pavilion.

Uzbekistan Pavilion.

Malaysian Pavilion.

Persona Pavilion. 

This was the pavilion that housed a beating artificial heart grown from induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS). 

Kuwait Pavilion.

China Pavilion.

There were artifacts in showcases like what you see at museums. On the glass was a 3D rendered image of the artifact. With your fingers, you can manipulate the image, zoom in and zoom out, magnify and rotate the image. For a vase, you can look inside and see the inside walls and examine the texture.

When our time was up to see the Italy Pavilion, we looked for the special line for reservations. We couldn't find one but we joined a line queued up in the back of the building. The line started moving when our reservation time came up, but no one really checked anything. I had my reservation email available but no one looked at it. 

Anyways, it was impressive inside. There was a masterpiece by Caravaggio of Christ that everyone was crowding around for a picture. There were flowers lying under the masterpiece that we presumed were for the passing of the Pope but wasn't sure. 

Da Vinci codex.

There were so many things to see but some things were oddly placed without explanation like the room with the white models of a human heart. 

I wasn't sure if it was medical breakthrough or a technological advance in healthcare when I saw these 'hearts' on pedestals.

Oman Pavilion. Theme: Earth, Water and Humanity. We didn't go inside but we found the pavilion to look very interesting.

 

The Philippines Pavilion resembled a boat.

Bulgaria Pavilion was pretty at night.

Singapore Pavilion at night.

 

We did visit the Singapore Pavilion. Inside, they had a model of the super trees that lit up and flowers blooming at the top. They had these tablets to interact with. You enter your dream and it lights up a ball in the middle as though your dreams were made to come true.

The Portugal Pavilion had ropes draped from the top of the building to the bottom.

The Netherlands Pavilion.

This was a strange looking pavilion, not sure which country represented it.

We only had one day to spend at the Expo. When we walked in to the Expo, we wanted a map of the place but the line was too long. They encouraged us to scan a QR code for an online map but we saw people with a physical map and we wanted a copy. We tried to obtain one but every time we asked someone for one, they kept referring us to a kiosk or an info booth. There weren't enough people around the Expo that could speak English. And there weren't enough signs. I think the organizers could have consulted Disney on a lot of things. A fast-track or Genie pass would had worked out better. We paid for an entrance ticket but were not permitted to see pavilions because we did not have reservations. 

The China pavilion from the back. It is equally stunning from the front.

We waited for a little bit but when we got in, the first 5 minutes were interesting. It was like walking into a museum with showcases displaying an ancient vase or artifact. On the glass, there was a transparent display that you can operate with your hand. It was a 3D image of the artifact inside the case. You can rotate the image, enlarge it and move it around. If it was a vase or container, you can rotate it as though you were looking down into it then enlarge it so you can examine the inside of it. This technology at museums would be great.

There were films on China in the rest of the pavilion. We walked through it relatively fast and did not watch any of the films because it was getting late and we needed to leave the Expo.

Some of the pavilions we wanted to see but did not have reservations to or were turned away included: Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland

Canada Pavilion.

Attendees were given iPad like tablets. As these tablets hovered over icebergs in the room, the tablets revealed a story beneath the ice. It was quite illuminating and educational.

Japan Pavilion.

Mark your calendars for the next Expo to be held in Busan, South Korea.