EXPO IS OVER! Was it worth it? – Osaka World Expo 2025 Finale – Japan Travel 大阪万博
Hi everyone, David here! Welcome back to
the channel! Thanks for coming back for another video or welcome if it’s your first one.
Thank you for joining us! I appreciate that. How are you doing? I’m doing OK, exhausted
though. I had about 5 hours sleep. I’m doing this video at night because I don’t have any
other time this week. I’ve been walking a lot for the Expo. I’ve been standing a lot for work.
I’m just really worn out. So, if I look a bit pallid and translucent, then that’s why. But
I’ve got stuff to talk about. We’ve got the Expo This is kind of my finale video, I guess.
I took a long break. As you might recall, I’ve been to every pavilion now so please check
out my Expo diaries to see all of those. I did a ranking a few weeks ago where I ranked all 100
pavilions that I could rank, and you can see what my favourites were. Then I took two months
off really. I went back to England. I came back and got the flu. I was going on those
Kansai pavilion mini tours. So, I’m going to get through those step by step. Maybe this isn’t my
last Expo video then, but that’s Expo adjacent, let’s say. Yeah. And finally, I got three more
visits at the end of September and the middle of October, including the final day,
which was yesterday. Yesterday was October the 13th. That was the final day of the
Expo. So, I was there. So, you can see what I did for the last three visits. I’m keeping
it short this time. You’ve seen everything else before. So, just a quick
brief update of what I did, including the some of the festivities of the finale. And after that,
I’m going to talk about the Expo as a whole. Was it worth it? What were the good points and
the bad points? And what’s next, I guess. So, please like this video. I really appreciate
that if you could subscribe to the channel, leave a comment or a question. What did you think
about the Expo? Share this channel to anybody who’s interested in Japan or British accents or
Myaku Myaku merchandise or whatever. Please just share it! Get the word out there! I really
feel like I’m never going to get monetized on this channel, which is fine. I mean, I did this to
help people, but help me please as well. OK, I’m going to hand over to myself. Enough waffle,
I’ll see you on the other side. OK, see you soon! OK, welcome back to Yumeshima Station
for the 17th time, I think. Chaos I’d never witnessed so far. Absolute madness. People were absolutely filling up the Expo to capacity. This was pretty much the picture for the last
month. I thought I’d show you a few of the things I didn’t manage to see. So, the Monster Hunter
Bridge at the XD Hall behind Healthcare. I didn’t get a chance to get into this one, but
the VR was going to make me sick, I think, so I left that one alone. That’s part of the
Healthcare pavilion, so I counted that as a check. The Sunset Beer Terrace with a beautiful sunset. It’s not there all the time, I promise. You can see Akashi Bridge and Awajishima over there. It’s twilight, so Myaku Myaku was sparkling. Does that mean Myaku Myaku is a vampire? I’m not sure. Otherwise, just enjoying the night view on the way back from the West Gate. I do like
how the pavilions all light up at night. I did a whole walking video about the night view, so
please check that out. The Belgian pavilion. I couldn’t get to see this this beautiful
decoration last time, so there it is. And pretty much every night we had a fireworks display during the summer. This was one of the smaller ones. It takes 5 minutes, but it’s a little bit lower
budget than the big ones you’re going to see later, but still everybody goes up to the Grand
Ring to enjoy it. So many that they had to shut down the escalators going up. Interesting
decorations outside the EU. Maybe this is the head of the EU. I don’t really know what the
connection was there. How’s your head? OK. This is the 18th visit and there was a large
group in the Inochi Circle, which apparently was the Emperor visiting
who went to the Future of Life pavilion. I spent ages waiting for him. And you can see that
blue jacket right in the background. That is the Emperor and his wife. She’s wearing the
blue jacket, but everyone stretched and got tall as soon as soon as he arrived, so I couldn’t
see anything. I was really disappointed! I did manage to get into the UK Pavilion again,
thanks to my friend Sho who worked there. I got to see some of the stunning AI art of the
UK. I was a bit harsh on this pavilion in my ranking. I put it right in the middle at No.50
I thought it didn’t really show you many ideas of the future, considering they are
constantly talking about ideas, but they did really show a bit of technology for the
future, so maybe I was a bit harsh. But, yeah, Union Jacks aplenty. There we go. UFOs even!
Do we have space shuttles? I don’t think so. So there we go. Come build the future. I’ll
stay here if I can. But yeah, nice job. I went to the Johnny Walker Bar at the top, or at least
I had a little look inside because it looked interesting, but the prices scared me off a bit.
I didn’t actually end up buying anything, but it looks like a fancy place to stay. And there was
an Aston Martin outside for some reason, but they come from my hometown, or they
used to, so I thought Aston Martin represent, the Vanquish. I think that’s the one they used in
Die Another Day, the James Bond movie. I couldn’t get any fish and chips, so I went to
the Polish pavilion and got the apple crumble with the ice cream, which was very nice. I don’t
know why they put chocolate sauce on it, but other than that, it was very delicious, very
cinnamony with some ice cream. It was nice ice cream, too. I don’t think I’ve actually shown you
the Commons E pavilion yet either, so I thought I’d show you a quick look around there. This
just basically a manga display. There are no countries inside. No stamp rallies or anything
like that. So, you get to see some random stuff from Japan. I don’t know what really what the
connection was there. Some samurai armour. You get to see some famous manga artists
who made all this different artworks there. So, it’s traditional Japan plus the art of manga.
I did say there weren’t any stamps. There was actually a new one there, the Green Expo 2027
coming to Yokohama. I’ll see you there for a later video, like and subscribe! Then I went
up to the Grand Ring just to kill a bit of time because I was waiting for the NTT pavilion.
I was waiting for the fireworks as well, which was nicely set off with the full moon over there.
Harvest Moon. It surprised everybody, the fireworks were actually behind us. So, everyone
suddenly turned 90°. So, another normal display there. Just enjoying the night life. Back down
to Portugal, back into the complete chaos of the Expo site. Nice though. Turkmenistan had better pay their light bill. But I had 1 more target to go to. A long time since I went to this one,
It was actually my first visit when I went to NTT. So it’s nice to round off things again
by going back for Parallel Travel. They’re talking about the history of communication,
how we can link up with each other. Another dazzling LCD display room. So, you get
to see all different kinds of communication, how we can make peace with each other and
live our parallel travels together. And then, of course, I came here for Perfume doing their
3D performance. So, apologies if the picture looks a bit blurry. That’s because it’s in 3D.
I found out too late that you could actually film through your glasses, but I actually
wanted to watch it, too. So, never mind. They’re sending a message all the way from
Suita, the 1970 Expo to the NTT pavilion of 2025 and then they did a performance of one of their
new songs, Nebula Romance. So nice to see them again before their ‘Cold Sleep’.
See you again, girls! Hopefully you’ll be back for the Expo in, I don’t know, 2075. And you
can see their autographs as well. And then they scan you very quickly as well. That’s why I
look so scruffy and completely blindsided. They give you 3 seconds to get ready, literally. And
then they mess around with you. They make you sing and dance. All a bit strange really. But I
was pulling some moves. Then a rather bizarre choir thing at the end. So that was interesting
stuff from NTT. I got aged down thankfully. So there we go. And my final visit. I managed
to finally get to my No.1 pavilion, the Future of Life Signature Pavilion. This is where
the Emperor visited a week before. You get to see creepy monkeys along the journey of life.
And this journey of life takes us 50 years into the future. We experience the memories of
somebody facing the cold clammy hand of the Reaper. Now, what does it mean if an android
has our memories? Does that mean they are us or not? Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Do they ride on electric trains? Probably. They have little electric slideshows. They’re
basically talking through the health options. You can either die a natural death or you can
move on to become an android. Do some— don’t break your ankle though. Watch ou!
Nice fluffy dogs. I don’t think that’s an android. But yeah, this is the big choice. This is the
future of life. What do you want to do? Grandma, in a touching ending, decided she wanted to push up daisies. I’m joking now, but I did find this quite moving and it got me
going again. Very emotional. But after that, we got some dancing androids just to break the
tension a bit. They’re throwing some shapes, enjoying some video calls on their virtual
travels. And of course, the virtual Matsuko Deluxe chat show host. So, they’re having a
bit of fun with some entertainers. This is the one that got all the headlines. And then the
bizarre kind of boss stage thing at the end, I don’t know what these are, kind of a choir of
demons. They were… when you’re standing right close to them as well. Their eyes
look at you. It’s very unsettling, but absolutely mesmerizing. That was one of the
most impactful moments of the Expo for me. So there we go. We can design our own future and the live the life we want. The mascots were out in full force. There was a kind of puffin
from Ireland. I didn’t realize Ireland had puffins. He’s probably puffing inside that costume,
it was 30°. And the Tsukigesho milk guy. He was out there too. He gave me a high five.
Thank you. And then we got the flag parades on closing day. I don’t know who that is. Probably
someone important. He was at the front. We have Myaku Myaku as well who did an amazing dance with one of the Japanese dance troupes. We got to see all the flags of all the countries
blowing in the wind. Nice shot there. They’d actually taken these from the East Gate.
I wanted to take a nice flag video when I left, but they were all gone. There you go. San
Marino after that you can see Kitty Chan’s out there as well. Hello Kitty. And then all of
the producers of the Signature Pavilions. I don’t know them by name, but there they
all were. There is Ishiguro-san from the Future of Life. That’s that guy who looks a bit like
Japanese Ronnie Wood. And then I think right at the back was Mr. Ochiai who makes
Null2, who is going off to the right. Then some brass bands as well, performing
their hearts out from one of the Osaka Kansai universities, and a variety of other celebrities
there too. I couldn’t pick them out but yeah, apparently they were all famous. So please check
those out at your leisure, people on stilts. And a place I didn’t manage to get to was the
sauna. I couldn’t get a reservation for that. I can’t show you anything inside anyway because
it’s a sauna. But there it was. That was right in the corner of the west area. One more sunset, last sunset of Expo. I decided to walk back to the main area. I was taking lots of photos
today, so not much footage. And finally, I got to see the very nice, gorgeous full firework
display. I probably could have chosen a better spot without the trees, but it was very impressive nonetheless. I do like some fireworks. Some more, there we go. Putting out all the
stops, impressing every everybody with their oohs & aahs, lovely. I like a fireworks display,
especially in summer. That’s the Japanese way. And the drone show finally. It had a bit of
a remix as well. We had some burning drones, which I’d never seen before, which was kind of
interesting. They had some little flares dripping from them. I really wish I’d found a better space
for this, too. The other side of the ring would have been much better. Never mind. It looks huge as well when you’re actually watching it, but I think it’s a perspective thing. And I missed
Myaku Myaku. He was hidden behind the Electric Pavilion. Luckily, my friend Yusuke
provided me with a lovely full-scale video of this. He had a wonderful view. It’s a absolutely
colossal Myaku. I think everyone felt a little bit sad when we saw, happy and sad. It’s a kind
of bittersweet end to the Expo. But thank you very much, Expo. You gave us a lot of fun! And
a few flares to set things off to. Very exciting! I love a drone show. I’m going to track down
some more drone shows after this. So, thank you for watching. I’m going to hand over to myself, I’ll see you on the other side. Thank you! OK. Well, that was that. That was the end
of the Expo. What did you think? After finishing all the pavilions, I kind of had
a feeling of “What do I do now?” How do I get the motivation to just go back, because I’ve
got a bad habit now of making everything into a mission. I’ve got goals. I’ve got checklists,
I’ve got all these things. I go full steam ahead. The Expo certainly turned into that for me,
trying to go to every pavilion. I was stressing myself out. I wondered if I was really enjoying
things or if I was just filming them, which is always kind of a problem for the
YouTube content, but I think I did enjoy it. So yeah, maybe I was OK. But for the last
three, I decided I really wanted to see my favourite three pavilions one more time. Well,
if you’ve not watched the ranking already, spoiler alert, you’ve seen them already. The Kansai
pavilion, which, I don’t think I took any footage inside there because you’ve seen that already.
The NTT for Perfume because they’re going into Cold Sleep, their hiatus. And finally, thank
goodness I managed to do it on the final day, the Future of Life pavilion. So those are all
amazing. I stand by my ranking. I think maybe Kansai Pavilion could just squeeze out NTT because of my Perfume bias. I love Perfume! Kansai Pavilion, very friendly, lots of great stuff
to do. It’s very interactive and I could get excited about Kansai again, I think. Not that I ever
got bored of it, but you know, it just kind of refreshed me. NTT, I got to see the girls
one more time and enjoy the very bizarre stuff they were doing in the NTT pavilion. And of course the Future of Life; emotional, interesting, thought-provoking, amazing. Definitely my No.1. So I kind of, I don’t know, I confirmed it to myself. That was it. I was really worried that
I wasn’t going to get into any of them. But I was sitting there trying to refresh the
reservation pages, but I managed to do it. What else? The finale day. It was nice to walk
around and just look around one more time. I took photos of every pavilion over the last
few trips, too. So, I think I might make a little photo album or something just to keep
memories. Of course it was very crowded. We did get to see the flag parade, which I was very
pleased about. I didn’t get a very good view, but I could still enjoy the festivities, the flags,
all of the producers of the Signature Pavilions, which was kind of cool. It’s kind of like
seeing all the Pokémon gym leaders all together at once. It was like All Stars. I had
to be told who they were though, so I’m going to have to check my footage again for those.
Also some Japanese celebrities, too. That was interesting. I don’t recognize anybody, but
please, answers on a postcard! Please tell me who they were. That was good. The fireworks
were lovely. I managed to miss every single big fireworks display. Recently I’d only seen the
small ones, but thankfully I managed to finally see the big one, which was really cool.
And also the drone show. thank you so much to my friend Yusuke who gave me the footage
of the final Myaku Myaku projection in drone form. I really wish I could have seen
that properly. I just saw him peeking up over the top of the ring. So that was a nice way to
to wrap things up. I think everyone felt like it was a really nice moment, too, because
I remember when this little dude or dudette debuted and everyone said,
“Oh, he’s creepy. He’s not cute.” But I kind of grew to like Myaku Myaku fairly early on. I think
people were still a bit resistant, but now I think people have gone crazy. People have got their
little tags on their bags everywhere. And I mean, look at look at them. It’s very cute. Also
I got a free pin badge from Thailand, if you can see that. Well, that was a nice little
freebie. Of course, I managed to finish off my my stamp collection on my passport.
I’m not going to show you all that now, but there were lots of extra stamps as well. So,
I definitely filled up my passport. So there we go. That was everything! So, what did we learn?
What was the point? Was it worth it or not? OK, I’m going to go through the bad stuff first
because I want to get it out of the way, I don’t want to finish on a bad note. There were
certainly things I really wish had changed or been done differently. not so much pavilions,
but more like the organization of the entrances for example. The East Gate is where most
of the traffic was coming in because that was the Metro station. The West gate was
underused a bit because shuttle buses are quite limited and taxis and coaches. So it felt a little
bit imbalanced. They did try to change that by opening up the footpath, but then that
was so restricted as well. I didn’t really understand why can’t you use it until 8:30. They
were trying to encourage it with one hand and then trying to push people back with the
other, which is just crazy. And just the East Gate, that’s really a bad first impression, I thought,
because you’d have to wait outside there for a long time. We know Japan’s a very hot country
in the summer these days. It’s very humid. There was no shelter at all for most of the time.
They did put up a few tents by the end, but it was really too little too late. There really
wasn’t much cover there. It’s not just annoying because you have to wait a long time because whatever. I mean, they could have made that a bit smoother as well. Maybe having half hour entry slots instead of 1 hour one so everyone didn’t just pile in for their slot. But also, it’s
not only annoying, but it was dangerous, I think, because the constant warnings about
heat stroke, being careful, take measures to avoid heat stroke, but they weren’t really helping us. They had those air conditioners outside, which makes no sense really at all unless you’re
standing right next to it. But the times when you’re standing waiting, you’re not near them.
They did bring the rental parasols, that was something good. But overall they really could
have dealt with the entrance a lot quicker. I mean that’s such an easy thing to get right.
I know they don’t have a lot of space, the limited space, but there’s other ways to
manage that. So that was really disappointing, I think. And it just left people really frustrated
when they were coming in. Also the reservation system was a complete dog’s dinner. I couldn’t
believe how lucky I was when I started and I was just thinking, “Oh, I’m just going to reserve
this, reserve that.” Cut to two months later when it was quite hard to get reservations for
things, especially at midnight. The midnight trolley dash, trying to get on, the website
constantly crashing and kicking people out. They have a long waiting list system, but when
you get in, it can just kick you out as well. And then what? You know, there was no priority
once you got through the login thing. So, it was just really confusing. I don’t really know
why they organized it like that. It didn’t seem to benefit anybody. Certainly not the guests.
And of course there were lots of people finding loopholes and getting around using automation.
I’m fairly sure people were using automated things to book their reservations because things were just going lightning quick. They were disappearing as soon as they were
appearing. On-the-day reservations were pretty bad really. The only way I got around it
was by choosing the pavilion I wanted, going on their page, and just refreshing the
page over and over and over again until the thing lit up red and you could try and hopefully get
there before everybody else. But that’s not a fun experience. And for people who complaining
that they couldn’t get any reservations, there was no option then. That’s all you can do. So that
really was never countered at all. So that was really disappointing. I mean, even having
the on-the-day pavilions reservations, having a waiting list for those. So, like, OK,
you’re No.56 on the list for this pavilion, just hold on. That would be something
We wouldn’t be sitting there tapping our phones because I don’t know. It felt
like it went against the SDGs image of the Expo, but we basically need to bring
our phones, need to bring mobile batteries, we need to use our power all the time. I don’t
know. That was disappointing. And because you need the phone for most of the paying
as well, because everything was cashless, which benefited them, I guess, but not us. Because if your phone battery dies, then your ticket’s gone. You can’t find your ticket. I don’t
know, it just didn’t really tie up together. And the water fountains, too. That was a good
idea, but there weren’t enough of them and the water was really kind of lukewarm. Also the
the… what’s the word?… The bacteria infection in the water supply was pretty bad too.
They had to cut the water show for a few weeks. So yeah, there’s lots of things
that could have been avoided, I think. But that’s the worst things out the way.
And those are quite fundamental, which is a bit of a shame. To be honest, I didn’t get any
reservations from the lotteries ever since June basically. I don’t know who was getting
all of these lotteries. It was a very kind of opaque system. Anyway, but there we go.
That’s enough. What about the good things? Well, I mean, it’s the Expo. I love international
events. The whole point of it was, of course, to display your country’s culture or your
country’s goals for the future, technology to help our lives, making peace, things like that.
That was good. I don’t know if every pavilion really followed the brief so strictly, but to be
honest, I don’t really care about that. If they’re giving us entertainment, if they’re
giving us knowledge, that’s what I want. And a chance to find out more about the world.
I think I’m a bit of an idealist when it comes to these sort of things. But I like
the Olympics. I like Eurovision. I like the Expo. It gives us a chance to kind of get to know
each other a bit more, find out what’s similar, what’s different in nice ways. It makes us think
about a bigger world. I don’t know, that sounds a bit… I don’t know, I don’t know what
I sound like but I do believe in that still. I think there is a lot of power in these
big international events. So yeah, I was very happy to experience a lot of cultures.
I do wish some countries hadn’t pulled out at the last moment. No jokes about that…
like South Africa, I really wanted to see them. Mexico, Argentina, Estonia, what other ones?
I don’t know which other countries pulled out, it was a shame. I mean, I don’t know if Russia
would have been allowed in, but they pulled out as well. It would have been interesting to see them. So I wish we could have all been there, but I’m glad we had as many as we did.
We got to see lots of unique things, like the artificial hearts. We had LCD displays
I’d never seen before. These kind of dynamic displays, so it was pushing the
boundaries of entertainment and how we can think of museums. We go to see
things from other countries. You got to see culture, dances, you got to talk to people.
You got to see moon rocks, all sorts of things. That was interesting. I know that was
kind of a call back to the Expo 1970, but yeah, interesting all the same. How else do
you get to see these things usually? And yeah, Myaku Myaku, nice mascot. I’m kind of obsessed.
I don’t think I’m going to say goodbye for a while. So we got lots of memories. I enjoyed it.
I think they did a lot of… I think towards the end they were thinking up new ideas,
what we could do to improve things even more as they went along, that was good. Some of the
pavilions had their teething problems with technical issues or how to manage
the line queuing systems. If anything, I managed to build up some stamina, firstly to
the sun. I’m a very pale person. I get sunburnt, but I managed to avoid getting sunburnt the
whole summer. I got a little bit pink sometimes, but that was all. I could level up my stamina
for waiting for things. I don’t want to wait for things. I don’t want to wait for a restaurant
for more than 30 minutes, but actually I think I got away with it pretty well. I don’t think
I had to wait more than 1 hour for any pavilion and even then that was a rare occurrence.
So mostly I could get reservations or just be shrewd. I think I played the game quite well.
I managed to pick my good times to visit things. I managed to get into Italy in 40 minutes which was a miracle basically. I managed to get into Null2, the infamous one. So, I feel like I played
a good game. I hope this was fun for you as well, watching through my eyes. If you haven’t
seen everything, if you’re avoiding the spoilers, now’s the time, you can go back and watch my
Expo Diaries. I’m going to kind of update the video descriptions so you can just skip past
my talking bit and get straight to the juicy parts. Yeah OK. I’m not really to let it go.
There is the new Expo coming up in 2027 in Yokohama. This is the Green Expo which has
been held in Osaka before as well which was in Tsurumi Ryokuchi Park in 1990. So it’s based
around gardens. They have the contributing countries there too. I’m definitely going to check
that out in a few years. OK well, I guess that’s it. There are a few After Expo
events. I did try to go to one today, but the line was 2 hours long and yeah, I was out. It was a
museum about the design of the Expo. But there is a party going on. When this video
comes out, we’ll have just come back from it, hopefully. Hopefully, I managed to get in.
Yeah, I’m not ready to let it go yet. I’m going to pore over my albums, my photos,
my passport, and everything. So, there we go. Thank you. I hope I didn’t talk too much about
Expo, but I had to see it through to the end. I hope you appreciated my hard work for
you guys. So, please leave a like, leave me a Super Like if you want. That would really help
me push this channel along. I’ve been working really hard to see everything for you, show you
everything. And I’ll come back soon. I’ve got a few more projects to finish by
the end of the year. I want to finish off my 33 temples trip – I’m not going to make
videos for all of those because they don’t really seem to be popular, but I might make a grand
finale one of those when I finish. And yeah, well, I’ll leave you with that. So, please like
this video, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment or a question. What did you
think about the Expo? Share this channel to anybody. Leave me a Super Like. I’d
appreciate that so much. That’d really help me out. But otherwise, thank you very
much for your patience and I guess we’ll see each other at some point. Take it easy
and take care and see you again. Bye-bye!
The 2025 World Expo opened in Osaka’s new Yumeshima Island in April 2025, I was there in its opening week to enjoy around 200 pavilions from every corner of the world. Now after 184 days, it’s all over, so join me as I pick up the pieces of my shattered life without Expo.
I will talk about the Expo as a whole, what didn’t go well and what went well.
As well as that, I’m doing a quick review of my 17th-19th visits to the Expo, revisiting my favourite pavilions, and enjoying the final day’s festivities, including footage from:
UK Pavilion
NTT Pavilion
Signature Pavilion: Future of Life
Closing Ceremony Parade
Final Fireworks
Final Drone Show
After this, I’ve got a few more Expo-adjacent videos from my trips to the Kansai Pavilion satellite sites (there are a few up already), and when I have some time I will do a sort of archive video of all my Expo footage as a time capsule for the future, so stay tuned!
If you found this useful, I would really appreciate a Super Like, or you could even join one of my membership levels for exclusive content and access.
Thank you all for your support so far – it’s only just beginning, I hope, so please continue to support me in my fourth year. I appreciate all my subscribers, and my next goal is to get my annual viewing time up so I can grow my channel more in 2025. I think it’s possible! Please like, subscribe, comment and share! Thank you!
#osakaexpo #expo2025 #worldexpo2025 #worldexpo #kansai #japan #travelinjapan #sightseeing #expo #myakumyaku #大阪関西万博 #大阪万博 #大阪万博2025 #signaturepavilion
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