From smart cities to AI-driven healthcare, step into the future and discover cutting-edge innovations at this prestigious world event held from 13 April to 13 October
Expo 2025 is now ongoing on Yumeshima, a 390ha artificial island in Osaka Bay. What can you expect to see there?
Prepare to be awestruck by everything at the Expo’s Future Society Showcase, a leapfrog into a dream future, neatly organised into exhibition categories. The Smart Mobility Expo, for instance, presents technology that will hopefully lead to a carbon-neutral society. Think passenger drones and driverless, electric buses with a power supply that recharges while in motion. The Future Life Village, on the other hand, provides visitors with a more immersive and evocative experience of urban life in the not-too-distant 2030.
Other attractions include the Osaka Healthcare Pavilion where, if you dare, you can meet a version of yourself from the year 2050, created based on your personal health record.
This isn’t Osaka’s first rodeo; the city hosted the World Expo in 1970, which showcased the first-ever IMAX film, early mobile phones, magnetic levitation technology and a moon rock, a souvenir from the previous year’s Apollo moon landing.
This year’s event is a global gathering of over 160 countries and international agencies showcasing innovations designed to help the world meet the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals – a list of 17 goals that includes eradicating poverty worldwide, promoting peace and justice for all and addressing the climate emergency – first set 10 years ago.
Book tickets online and plan well in advance.
Rewind and unwind
Not far from the futuristic fair are old-school (and very cool) retreats worth travelling for
Solo in style. Travelling alone? Tadao Ando-designed The Shinmonzen, in Kyoto’s Gion district, offers contemporary art on the walls and views of the Shirakawa River. The luxury ryokan also features Ogata, a minimalist jewel-box boutique selling fine Japanese teas, ceramics, glassware, confectionery and fragrances.
Honeymoon hideaway. In the Edo-style castle town of Omi Hachiman, Shiga Prefecture, the gorgeous Hatago Wakatsu is perfect for couples. Built in a former tatami shop, with the original structure dating back to 1829, the luxury ryokan offers full old-school immersion, including a wood-themed room with straw mattresses on tatami floors.
Family fun. Last year, Singapore-based hotel brand Banyan Tree opened the 52-room Banyan Tree Higashiyama Kyoto, not far from the iconic Kiyomizu Dera. It features spacious ryokan-style rooms, its own bamboo forest and, uniquely, a Kengo Kuma-designed Noh stage as a tribute to Japan’s traditional performing art.
