I've been there twice, good locations are the seashore at sunrise, oak alleys, sheldon, the unitarian church is lovely and the historic streets in the south of the city. The horse drawn carriage rides are fun but not much use for taking photographs
Please ignore the OP and enjoy your vacation in the UK
great picture and lovely composition, just out of interest what settings did you use please?
If you have time go to the Holocaust Memorial, look it up on line its a good photo spot
I've read all the comments and watched the video but what do you use in a family situation say when it's not possible to bounce and you still need to diffuse the flash light. I guess one way is to keep reducing the flash power in manual until you get it right but people will not wait around for that to happen in practice.
As well as the places above Takayama is lovely, obviously the Golden Temple is great as is Himeji where one of the Bond films was set.
I second the suggestion of Hiroshima and if you stay overnight you can take a local train to Miyajima Island, I've never seem so many shrines in one place and you will see many photo opportunities there.
I have a Ramelli video course and he often works with photographers from the USA. In my view he is ok but you may find his style and French accent a bit wearing after a few views of the video.
I also have other video courses and of those I think the creative live ones are good but do read the reviews first as some trainers on that site I find to be not very good for me.
There's lots on youtube if you can find someone you like.
Good luck
I traded in my Olympus for Panasonic as I could just not get my head around the menu system easily. However there are lots of helpful videos on youtube