Japanese etiquette 2 - at the table

A typical Japanese meal might present itself like this:

Traditional Japanese breakfast. It's just another meal, except rice is often in the form of porridge because it's easier on the stomach early in the morning. That morning, I felt like regular rice. The side dishes for a Japanese breakfast are prescribed. Fish, miso soup, egg omelet being staples.

It's rice, some side dishes, soup, and pickles.

The idea of the side dishes is that they complement the rice. They are often in smallish quantity and taste strong on their own (though Japanese food is much more understated in that respect than Korean food). The idea is to pick a bit of a side dish and eat some rice with that. The bland taste of the rice balances out the strong taste of the side dish. You alternate that with sips of the soup.

Here is a mix of tricks and table manners I picked up from watching people, the internet and Japanese friends. Some are also Korean imports.
1) In a semi-formal to formal setting (or just for fun with close friends), begin your meal with the phrase "Itadakimasu" (the final "u" is mute).
2) If it's in a flat dish, leave it on the table. If it's in a small bowl, pick it up. Soup comes in a bowl (obviously), so does rice. Many times, there is no spoon for the soup and even less for the rice. How do you eat soup with chopsticks? You don't. You pick up the bowl and slurp the soup. You use your chopsticks to pick up vegetables, tofu cubes and other solids present in the soup. It's similar with the rice. While it is sticky enough to be picked up with chopsticks, it's difficult to get the rice from the table to the mouth, so you bring the bowl up to your face to eat.
3) During the meal, if you need to set down your chopsticks, lay them flat on the table or across a dish. DO NOT stand them up in your rice bowl. That makes them look like incense sticks at a funeral. Needless to say, not happy thoughts and for a superstitious people, probably also a bad omen.
4) If you are the younger one or want to show respect, pour tea for other people at the table. If someone pours for you (more likely as you are probably the guest), present your cup holding it with two hands or touching your arm with the hand that is not holding the cup. By the way, presenting and receiving is always done with two hands.
5) If you want to look Japanese, hold your tea goblet with two hands when drinking.
6) Save the pickles for the end of the meal (saving some rice to go with them). That's not a must, but I read that's what the Japanese do (I could be wrong).
7) Clean out your dishes. If you are at someone's house, that is particularly important. If you are at a restaurant, expect the unfinished food to stay on the table until you essentially get up to leave. In the US, the wait staff will sometimes take your plate while you are still eating (it's happened to me - I am a slow eater). This will NEVER happen in Japan. That also means that, as a friend put it, if there is something you don't like and are leaving aside, that food will stare at you until the bitter end of the meal.
8) At the end of the meal, when leaving the restaurant tell the wait staff "gochisosama deshita". It's even better with a bow.  A less formal version is simply "Gochisosama".

If you are having ramen (chinese noodle soup) instead of a japanese meal, slurp your noodle soup like there is no tomorrow. That is if you can do violence against years of training from your Mom telling you not to slurp your soup. Slurping makes it taste better and expresses satisfaction with the food. Both are compliments to the chef, who worked hard to make a tasty bowl of noodles for you and would hate to see it go to waste because not slurped properly. If you can't stomach pork fat, stay away from ramen noodles.