I was planning a trip to Japan (fly into Kyoto, take the train around the country-side a bit, check out the mountains, end off in Tokyo). Three questions:

1. My Japanese is pretty rudimentary, but I'm really worried about insulting people because I'm bad at telling the difference between my "boku wa" and "watashi wa" and all that sorta stuff... is it important to know formal Japanese if I'm obviously a foreigner? If so, where can I learn some of the ins and outs?
2. It's cliche, but... do I or should I learn how to bow? My enter knowledge of bowing currently comes from a few years of Aikido (and you don't "bow" so much as kowtow) and reading "Rising Sun" when I was a kid.

And, last question, nothing to do with travel:
3. Is it still illegal to show the old Imperial Japanese flag (the one with the rays coming off the sun)?