Osaka Ending
Oct. 7th, 2025 08:22 amOne more entry on my trip to Japan before I forget to detail it. The original plan was to visit a theme park. Not Mario World at Universal Studio Japan. That required reservations well in advance. I also could not secure reservations for the Nintendo museum in time.
Instead I considered a lesser known theme park. It's more of an actual park with some attractions including Godzilla and Dragon Quest. It was 2 hours of travel each way however and that combined with another hot, humid day made me reconsider.
Instead I found the memorial park for the original World Expo held in Osaka back in 1970. While most of that world expo was removed, a few attractions were left behind including a monorail, history museum, culture center, Japanese gardens, and the monument called the Tower of the Sun. That expo was a massive success with 2.5x the number of visitors of the current expo. There was an Augmented Reality option to see what the expo was like fully constructed but the app was annoyingly region locked to Japan smart phones. A large summer matsuri festival was also in effect. The crowds were minimal so I spent the day leisurely exploring and imaging what that expo was like.
Even though crowds and a frustrating reservation system prevented me from fully enjoying Expo 2025, seeing the history of Expo 1970 helped to make up for that.
Instead I considered a lesser known theme park. It's more of an actual park with some attractions including Godzilla and Dragon Quest. It was 2 hours of travel each way however and that combined with another hot, humid day made me reconsider.
Instead I found the memorial park for the original World Expo held in Osaka back in 1970. While most of that world expo was removed, a few attractions were left behind including a monorail, history museum, culture center, Japanese gardens, and the monument called the Tower of the Sun. That expo was a massive success with 2.5x the number of visitors of the current expo. There was an Augmented Reality option to see what the expo was like fully constructed but the app was annoyingly region locked to Japan smart phones. A large summer matsuri festival was also in effect. The crowds were minimal so I spent the day leisurely exploring and imaging what that expo was like.
Even though crowds and a frustrating reservation system prevented me from fully enjoying Expo 2025, seeing the history of Expo 1970 helped to make up for that.