A Trip Around the World in Osaka, Japan.

It was hot, it was incredibly hot. It was only 1 pm on our second day at the World Expo Osaka, and some of us had already planned to leave early, as the heat struck stronger than the day before. However, despite the hot weather, it's safe to say that our trip to the World Expo was nothing but amazing and insightful.

Overview from on top of the Grand Ring

World Expo Osaka 2025 is an ongoing global showcase, with participation from 152 countries and 188 pavilions. Taking place at the artificial island of Yumeshima in Osaka Bay, the exhibition has been ongoing since April 13, and will run its course till October 13, 2025.

As one of the exhibition organizers in Malaysia, the expo is something that we can’t miss and as soon as there’s a window open from our busy schedule, we flew to Osaka and attended the event for two days straight.

After 6 hours of flight, and about an hour plus of train ride and walking, we, a team from Opulence Exhibition Services, OES, found ourselves queuing up to enter the expo, and here is our first tip (one of many), bring an umbrella and portable fan. Though this tip might not come in handy as summer is heading towards the end in Japan, but trust us, those two might come in handy at any time of the day.

Bear in mind, the island was 155 hectares big, so you are going to do a lot of walking, and with thousands of people attending every day, if you wish to enter the famous pavilion (such as France, Beijing, Japan and even Malaysia Pavilion), you need to prepare yourself to queue for hours, hence the reason why you need to make yourself as much comfortable as you can, such as umbrella, hand fan and proper shoes (Tips #2)

 As you enter the area, the one thing that you will straight away notice is the Grand Ring, a massive wooden circular structure designed by Sou Fujimoto, covering more than 61,000 square meters, making it the world’s largest wooden architectural structure.

The Grand Ring by Sou Fujimoto, the largest wooden architectural structure in the world

We split into two teams, and we started exploring the expo under the hot scorching sun. We were quickly impressed by how big and how grand the design for each pavilion was. From Beijing, to Singapore, to Thailand, and to Portugal, every pavilion was designed as if they were competing to get the best design at the event (Maybe they are?)

As an event organizer, whether you are an event organizer in Malaysia or any part of the world, of course, we are not just looking at the designs. We look at every aspect of the event, from the marketing side – they have a booth at the airport and banners and posters can also be seen in trains and stations – to the registration system, to facilities and their organization at the event, everything was properly done. Of course, some things can be improved, perhaps the number of water stations can be increased, and the registration entry can be done faster, but overall, the event was well-handled from the moment we went in until we left the area.

We could not cover the whole pavilion in one day; in fact, even two days are not enough, but we did manage to get to the nation’s pride, the Malaysia Pavilion, on the second day. Tip number three, if you are a citizen of that pavilion, you might have fast lane entry to get into the pavilion, and that’s what we experienced at Malaysia’s pavilion. It was an immense feeling to see that our country’s pavilion is one of the famous ones that the public is trying to enter, and we believe mainly because our food is voted as no 1 food at the World Expo Osaka, beating other foods from other countries! (Malaysia boleh!)

OES team at Malaysia Pavilion, World Expo Osaka 2025.

Overall, it was an unforgettable trip for the whole team. Despite getting ourselves tanned for the two days we were at the expo, the knowledge we had learn, the people that we’ve met, and the visuals and information that we gathered, can only make us wiser and better as one of the event management companies in Malaysia.

The next World Expo will be back in 5 years in Riyadh, and we hope that we get to go again and see how the world will evolve in the next 5 years.
Till next time.