Osaka

A poster for the event, showing a view of the fairgrounds from overhead at night.

On Wednesday, Steve and I went to the fair. Technically, it’s called Expo 2025 Osaka, but it’s a world’s fair. Some 158 countries are participating, and more than 22 million people have attended since it opened April 13. The only reason I knew it was happening is because we visited Osaka last fall and saw posters promoting it. When it turned out we were going to be in Osaka again this October, the Expo called to me.

Throughout my life I’d read about the great early international expositions of the late 19th Century: Paris, London, Chicago. We have at least one friend who attended the 1964-65 New York City world’s fair and still recalls its wonders with awe. But neither Steve nor I ever had the chance to go to one. So in July, I bought tickets online.

Now I know I should have done that months earlier. For one thing, the ticket-buying process was almost unimaginably complicated. The official Expo registration manual was more than 30 pages long.

After hours of study this past summer, I secured one-day admission for us. (This cost about $41 per person.) But I could only get tickets that let us enter the gates at 10 a.m.; the earlier slots were all gone. Worse: I had missed the deadline for making reservations to enter the pavilions at the heart of the fair-going experience.

There were one or two lotteries in which one might snag such reservations closer to the day we would be attending, but it was all so arcane and confusing (and we were traveling by then), I never succeeded. So we set off Wednesday morning with limited expectations:

I wanted to walk the “Grand Ring.” To accommodate the expo, the Japanese built an artificial island in Osaka Bay. Then, encircling the heart of the fairgrounds, they built what’s being billed as the largest wooden structure in the world — a beautiful, elevated wooden walkway. No tickets were necessary to amble along it and take in the views of the bay, the city, and most importantly, the festival pavilions.

Some pavilions didn’t require a reservation. I hoped to visit as many of those as possible until we ran out of energy.

I also had been hoping the crowds that jammed the Expo in its initial months would diminish by the time we got there. What a laugh. My heart sank when we read in an English-language Osaka newspaper that this event had proven more popular than the Expo held in Aichi, Japan in 2005. Total visitors were expected to amount to around 25 million, with daily attendance building as the end of the event approached.

We took the metro from our hotel. As we neared the Yumeshima station just before 10 a.m., I began to believe it: more than 200,000 people DID share our plans for the day.

Our car in the subway was as crowded as any I’ve experienced in Tokyo.

At the end of the line, we all poured out and onto the escalators.

The crowd was in a festive mood as we approached the exit.

This dampened a bit when we all trudged into a huge queue for the security screening.

After about 40 minutes, we finally reached the security screeners, tapped our QR codes on a reader, and walked into the entry plaza. To orient ourselves we headed for the Grand Ring.

Here’s how it looked as we approached it.

The space underneath the walkway was striking.

Up on top, we found two levels of walkway, one adjoining an embankment planted with grass and wildflowers. At certain points, you could look over it to take in Osaka Bay.

Looking down from the other side of the walkway, we saw scattered performances taking place, like this one by some Japanese traditional dancers.

It was also a great place to see some of the pavilions. This was Canada’s.

Turkmenistan’s pavilion looked particularly snazzy. Turkmenistan?

About halfway around, we were starting to feel hungry, so we descended to the fairgrounds to search for lunch. Long queues were already forming. We braced ourselves to join them when, miraculously, I spotted a second-story dining room that seemed overlooked by the mob. At the top of the stairs, a sign announced that it was fully booked. But to our relief and amazement, the hostesses said we could have a table if we promised to be out within an hour.

It was worth every one of the 8,400 yen it cost the two of us (about $57) to sit in the cool, serene room, listen to soft classical music, and eat artful, delicious food.

Those are the appetizers on the left. The main course on the right. We followed that with excellent coffee. I felt revived. That didn’t last for long.

Outside again, the crowds had grown to mind-blogging proportions. Inching through the mob under a merciless sun, it became clear every major pavilion had an endless line encircling it.

It would have been great to visit China’s. But that was impossible.

Austria’s building was designed to evoke a musical notation, but there was no getting into it.

Steve and would have loved to check out the Future of Life Pavilion. No dice.

Here’s what we found outside Portugal’s pavilion.

As a last shot, we made our way to one of the large “commons” halls containing countries too little to have their own pavilions. You didn’t need a reservation to enter Commons A. It housed Barbados, Burundi, Bolivia, Comoros, Eswatini, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Kosovo, Krygystan, North Macedonia, Malawi, Mauritius, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Seychelles, the Solomon Island, Suriname, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Tonga, Uganda, Yemen and Vanuatu. I had particularly wanted to visit this building because in Honiara we’d met an artist named Simon who’d told us he’d be there, representing the Solomon Islands. We’d promised to visit him. But a surly guard at the door held a sign announcing that admission was restricted. “Please come again later,” it read.

He yelled at me when I took his picture.

That was it. Sweaty and discouraged, we headed for the exit.

We passed the folks with 2 pm entry tickets, waiting for their chance to get in.

I’ll say this. If you have to be crammed into a relatively small space on a hot, sunny day with a couple of hundred thousand other humans, try to do it with Japanese. They never shove or shout with exasperation. Confronted with horrible lines, they seek out the end to join in, ever stolid. Their accomplishment at creating this event was as impressive as so many other things are in this country. Neither Steve nor I regretted going. It was worth just seeing the scene.

Still, giving the choice of attending another world’s fair or another Goroka festival, I’d take the naked, painted stone-age folk any day.

I’m publishing this post from my desk in San Diego, where I’m immersed in Re-Entry. I’ve been tempted to blow off writing anything more about Japan. Our time in Osaka was gratifying and fun, but maybe not so interesting to read about. We made a quick day trip to Nara, the ancient Japanese capital and a magnet for visitors who come to feed special crackers to the vast numbers of semi-wild deer.

Considered sacred, the animals seemed pretty chill.

Some of them dip their heads in what’s said to be a bow, when seeking snacks. I tried to use my puppy-raising skills to tune up some of their bowing skills.

Nara Park contains some fabulous creations, including Tōdaiji Temple, where the largest wooden building ever constructed…

…shelters one of the world’s largest statues of the Buddha.

Steve and I also briefly strolled the grounds of the mighty Osaka Castle. But mostly we concentrated on food in this city known as “the grocery store of Japan.” One morning we spent a couple hours roaming the area around Dotonbori Street, a vortex for delicious street food and outrageous building decoration.

I’m pretty sure people don’t eat dragons, but there’s nothing like them for catching the eye.

Octopuses are enormously popular, both on building facades and chopped up to be embedded in wonderful, creamy fried batter (takoyaki).

Everywhere we looked, we saw people lined up in the street; we despaired of getting a taste of any of it. But on a quiet byway we finally scored some marvelous takoyaki.

On that walk I also spotted a homeless person — the first I’ve ever seen in Japan.

He was sleeping on that bench overlooking the river.

That evening we joined an “Osaka food tour” that introduced us to more than a dozen local specialties.

Shinsekai is another famous Osaka food center, part Coney Island, part faux Paris.

Our fellow group members were a lively bunch.

We learned about the Billiken, which started out as St. Louis University’s mascot, but long ago became beloved in Japan, and today has achieved quasi-religious status: the Shinto “god of things as they ought to be.”

And of course we ate more takoyaki — as well as more than a dozen other delicious dishes.

I’ve been so bowled over by and enthusiastic about our experiences on this trip, I’m a little worried I may sound undiscriminating. So I decided I should chronicle at least one thing at which we found the Japanese to be mediocre: They don’t explain themselves well to foreigners.

Over and over, even in famous, important sites, we found a shocking dearth of signs or placards or other educational material in English (or any language other than Japanese.) To some extent, we could overcome this by using Google’s Translate app or Google Lens. We’ve never used either much before, but today they’re game-changers in a country where you can’t read. They liberated us to waltz into restaurants without worrying if an English menu would be available (as often as not, it wouldn’t be.) They helped us figure out air-conditioning controls and all manner of street warnings and how to work a coin-op washer/dryer.

But in situations where there’s a ton of information being conveyed, for example at the Kyoto Railway Museum, the language apps don’t work that well. They take time to do their translating, and they require good Internet. (Our T-Mobile service was often tooth-grindingly slow.)

Our experience at the railway museum was particularly disappointing. The facility is enormous, and everything in it is bright and shiny and beautiful.

Steve and I went to the railway museum because our respect for Japanese railway technology knows no bounds. The country’s urban train systems are a wonder of the world — a stunning profusion of companies and services, with most trains arriving on time to the minute. For longer trips, the Shinkansen bullet trains have changed the world since the first one went zooming down the rails (50 years ago this month.)

The museum houses newer versions of the bullet train…

…as well as older incarnations like this one.

Steve got to sit at the controls and pose as a train engineer.

We had hoped to learn the bullet trains’ story — to hear about the initial vision for high-speed rail; get insight into what the biggest challenges were and how they were solved. But almost none of the museum’s relevant signage was in English, and even the Japanese-language information seemed sketchy. I’ll probably forget our whole visit there within weeks.

I can’t say that about the actual train that carried us from Kyoto to Osaka last Sunday. It wasn’t a bullet train. I don’t even remember how I learned about it. (Maybe a one-line mention in some guide book I consulted?) The Kyo-train GARAKU, as it’s called, only operates on weekends and holidays. The one we caught (the first of four making the round-trip that day) wasn’t mobbed with tourists. Many of our fellow passengers were Japanese. We didn’t have to buy any special ticket. We just used our marvelous “IC” cards (which worked on every bus, train, and metro line we took throughout the country, except for the Shinkansens.)

The 45-minute one-way trip from Kyoto to Osaka cost 410 yen, just under $2.75 per person. It was the most beautiful train I’ve traveled on anywhere.

Here it is, pulling into Kyoto-Kawaramachi station.

Here’s the car Steve and I sat in. Every car was unique in its decor.

Some of the seating emulated traditional tatami (straw mats).

The train had not one but two gardens. This one included a little fountain.

This one had a Zen vibe, complete with raked sand.

Why did the Hankyu Railway (a private company) build this thing? Why do they charge so little for it? Why go to so much expense and effort to carry some passengers between Kyoto and Osaka (something Hankyu does routinely every day)?

As usual, there were no signs, no brochures answering any of my questions. We just had to enjoy it, in wonder.

At home and abroad

with Jeannette De Wyze

It was just us and 200,000 other folks

One thing the Japanese do not do well (imho)