Japan, Nara

Nara was my favourite place I visited in Japan, it was so peaceful and full of inspiration. Nara is a really old city and used to be the capital of Japan. It had so many shrines to visit with handcraft, buildings, forests and a deer park.

My favourite being the Todaiji Temple that had the largest bronze Buddha statue at 15 metres tall and cast from over 400 tonnes of bronze. The size and scale was breathtaking and overwhelming. It inspired a new piece of work called temple which I hand wove, hand embroidered, hand wrapped and embellished with hand cut copper by my father.

The craftsmanship of the wooden structures were all incredible, and the shrines had different roofs, shapes and styles. We loved walking round the park with the autumn leaves in stunning red, oranges and yellows.

There were also so many wild deer, which were very tame and liked to be hand fed deer biscuits by the visitors. Nara really was the most peaceful place and you could get a sense of what Japan used to be like years and years ago.

This was one of the last places we visited on our trip. I feel so grateful I got to visit Japan for 16 days and visit all the places we wanted and more. It has and will inspire my textile work and created so many memories I will cherish.