I have compiled some information and tips I learned during my 10-day volunteer activities.

Purchasing tickets and reserving pavilions, etc.

There are a variety of tickets available, including the regular One-Day Ticket, the Night Ticket, or the Season Pass, which allows entry throughout the period. For more information, please see here.

Once you have purchased your ticket and booked the date, time, and gate you will use, you can reserve facilities such as pavilions. There are three opportunities to make reservations : 2-month advance lottery, 7-day advance lottery, Available slot reservation (3days to 9:00 am one day before the reserved date) For reservation methods, please see here

You can also make a reservation on the day of your visit using the On-Site Registration terminals at the Pavilion and Event On-Site Registration Center (P32 on official map, located opposite the Brazil Pavilion in the Empowering Lives zone).

Even if you don’t have a reservation, there are many pavilions that you can enter by lining up in front of the pavilion on the day. Information on pavilions that you can enter without a booking on the day and useful information such as national days can be found here.

However, you should be prepared to wait in line for a long time at popular pavilions. Also, like the USA Pavilion, there are places where you have to line up separately for English and Japanese explanations. Usually, the English line will let you in earlier. Some facilities will post information on how to enter and what goods will be distributed on the day in front of the pavilion, so it’s best to ask the pavilion staff without hesitation.

Official Stamp passport

Official stamp passport for stamp rally are available at the official shops at the Expo site (4 in total, 2 near the East and West Gates). Stamps are usually placed near the exits of each pavilion, and collecting stamps will make for good memories.

At the beginning of the stamp book, there is a place to stamp the official commorative visit stamp, which is available in front of the Personal Mobility station near the East and West Gates, but it is a little hard to find.

There is also a secret stamp somewhere that changes color every month, so it is fun to look for its location (ask the staff at the information center for the location). Also, at the end of the stamp book, there is a stamp of the official mascot Myaku Myaku surfing Great Waves. This is a colored picture like an ukiyo-e woodblock print that can be printed by overlapping stamps from 6 places, mainly in  Commons pavillion, and it is also fun to collect 6 of these.

There are 4 official shops, and you can buy the same stamp book at any one of them, but each official shop also sells its own novelty goods. For example, at the official shop run by JR West near the West Gate, they sell a ICOCA card, prepaid plastic IC card, a collaboration version of the platypus Iko-chan and Myakumyaku, which is only available at the Expo shop.

e Mover

The electric bus, e Mover, runs around the perimeter of the Expo site and can be used to travel between the East and West Gates. Ordinary e Movers are manned, but there is a fully automated e Mover that runs once every 20 minutes.

When you ride, you can see the monitors with sensors for the automated driving, although the driver sits in the driver’s seat to prevent accidents, you can see the operation of the vehicle right next to you without touching the steering wheel. You can also enjoy the view from under the sea part of the The Great Ring and the backyard view that you can’t usually see. Reservations are required to ride the automated e Mover, but if there are seats available, you can ride it on the day.

Cashless payment

The Osaka Expo is a completely cashless payment system, and not only foreign currency such as US dollars and Euros, but also Japanese yen cannot be used. Conversely, international credit cards such as VISA and American Express can be used for all payments within the venue. However, currently, signature payments for credit cards have been abolished in Japan, and PIN code entry is required, so you must check your PIN code again.

In addition, even in rare cases, payment errors may occur with credit cards issued overseas. In such cases, I recommend that you prepare plastic prepaid cards such as prepaid debit cards and prepaid IC cards. Within the Expo site, you can purchase plastic prepaid cards with foreign currency or Japanese yen cash at the Money Plaza near the East and West Gates, but the number of machines is limited, so I recommend that you purchase a prepaid IC card such as ICOCA at a train station outside of the venue before entering. The photo below left is inside the Money Plaza near the West Gate. The green machine in the center of the photo is for purchasing prepaid cards with foreign currency, and the small machine to the right is for purchasing prepaid cards with Japanese yen cash (I hope that there will be more of these machines).

Summary of 10 days

Also, for 10 days, I have uploaded various topics in blog format on the following topics.If there is a topic that interests you, please take a look at it.

Opening day 13th April 2025

Opening ceremony, Access to the East Gate, Osaka Healthcare Pavilion Nest for Reborn

Day 2, 14th April 2025

West Area Route Guide

Day 3, 15th April 2025

Namba Station, Osaka tourist spots

Day 4, April 16, 2025

Access to the west Gate, PASONA NATUREVERSE Pavilion, USA Pavilion, Italy Pavilion, Australia Pavilion

Day 5, April 17, 2025

Accessibility Center, Japan Pavilion

Day 6, April 18, 2025

Kansai International Airport

Day 7, Aprii 19, 2025

Medical Facilities, NIght event

Day 8, April 20, 2025

East Area Route Guide, Netherlands Pavilion, Singapore Pavilion, China Pavilion, Cradle of life

Day 9-10, April 21-22, 2025

Shin-Osaka and Mamba station

This information is updated and improved daily. Please check this site,

The many volunteer staff at the venue and the information center staff should have the latest information, so be sure to approach a volunteer staff member with a smile and ask.

Since the opening of the Osaka Kansai Expo on April 13, the volunteer activities that have been continuing for 10 days will end with the activity of providing access to the Expo site at Shin-Osaka Station and Namba Station. During these 10 days, I was able to get to know many visitors and fellow volunteers. I was also able to learn not only about the glittering world of the Osaka Kansai Expo, but also about the behind-the-scenes world that is working hard to support the Expo.

In addition, I have organized the information and impressions I learned during the 10 days of activities in the form of a diary for each day. I would like to summarize the information and impressions I gathered throughout the 10 days on the next page.

Osaka Kansai Expo2025 has several Medical Facilities (Clinics and First Aid Stations) for visitors who need medical care. Medical Doctors and nurses are always on-site at the Clinics, and only nurses are staffed at the First Aid Stations.

Language volunteers sometimes go into the examination rooms to interpret for medical staff who are not always good at languages. Although I can interpret general English, I was a little unsure when it came to specialized medical terms. However, on the other hand, Medical Doctors can understand specialized medical terms to a certain extent, so we can manage to complete the job safely.

You can check the location of the Medical Facilities here, but unfortunately the signs are a little difficult to find. If you are not sure where it is, please feel free to ask the volunteer staff nearby who are guiding you.

The night scene of the Expo 2025

The view of the Expo during the day is wonderful, but at night, each pavilion is lit up with unique lighting, so it is even more magnificent. Also, as the number of visitors decreases in the evening as visitors by group tours leave, it is relatively easy to get around, so I recommend staying until the evening.

I especially recommend the view from the top of The Grand Ring and Water Plaza, where the light and fountain show and drone show are held. However, since many customers head home after watching the drone show at Water Plaza, the gate on the way back is crowded. The drone show can be seen from near the gate, so I recommend coming to the gate before the drone show starts and watching it from there.

Today, I welcomed many guests from overseas directly at Kansai International Airport, where they arrive. Many of the guests heading to the Osaka Expo 2025 were experiencing Japan for the first time, and they had many questions, including how to access the Expo site, as well as where to exchange money at the airport and where to buy daily necessities. In addition, the way to access the East and West gates differs depending on the admission ticket to the Expo site, so we need to pay attention to the directions.

And above all, we also explained to them that guests cannot bring suitcases with carriers to the Expo site, so we need to leave luggages at the hotel or keep them in coin locker at the terminal station before heading to the site.
Of course, not all arriving guests are heading to the Expo site, so we tried to explain as carefully as possible to those heading to other destinations.

Today, I volunteered at the Accessibility Center of Osaka Expo 2025. You may not be familiar with the term “Accessibility Center”. Osaka Expo 2025 aims to be an Expo that can be enjoyed easily by all kind of guests including physical disabilities.

For this reason, the Accessibility Center lends out wheelchairs and hearing amplifiers free of charge to guests with walking or hearing disabilities. I provided support for wheelchair rental at the Accessibility Center.

Wheelchairs and hearing amplifiers can be borrowed free of charge, but reservations cannot be made, so on the day of the visiting, you will need to go directly to the Accessibility Center next to the East and West Gates to complete the reception procedure. It was just after the opening of the Expo, and there were still few visitors, but depending on the model of machines, the inventory for rental may be low, and I was a little worried about whether the equipment would function properly even if the number of visitors increased in the future. In the future, I strongly wish improvement such as increasing the number of units in stock will be made.

The Accessibility Center is located outside the entrance gate, and you need to go through the procedures such as loaning before entering the venue. However, when visitors look at the map, it can be considered that it is located exactly on the border, so some people entered without getting a loan, left temporarily and then re-entered, so be careful.

Japan Pavilion

After volunteering, I visited the pavilion of the host government. The exhibits were centered on algae, which is expected to be a future source of many materials such as energy and food, and there were some interesting points, but I personally didn’t like the exhibit that used popular characters to show the diversity of the many algae that exist.

Also, the highlight of the exhibit was a rock from Mars that arrived on Earth as a meteorite, but the controlling flow of visitors in front of the exhibit was not well managed, and the inside of the museum was quite chaotic. Since it is also the pavilion of the host country, I felt that immediate improvement was necessary (I guess it was improved quickly because an acquaintance of mine said that there were no problems when he visited later).

Today, my shift is to guide people inside the venue of Osaka Kansai EXPO, mainly on the patio or alley. Not only are the visitors new to the event, but the volunteers are also still new to it, so I often can’t answer customers’ questions right away and have to look up information on websites or resources before I answer.

However, unlike yesterday, today, the weather was good, there were relatively few visitors, and the customers seemed to be enjoying the Expo at a leisurely pace.

It seems that customers are happy when I take my time and have fun looking up answers together with them.