Bowing in Japan seems very important and after a few days, you will find yourself doing mini-bows yourself.
If someone is walking down the street and they come across a friend or aquaintence, they will bow to each other.
Waiters and waitresses bow to customers. Even the staff in McDonalds bow to you, although I note that McDonalds managed to have succesfully exported their extremeley polite and friendly service attitude (!) to Japan as well.
Most building sites have security guards at the entrance who also direct the trucks in and out. They have really flash hi-vis clothing, and light-sticks like they use on aircraft carriers. When they need to stop the traffic to let a truck out, afterwards they bow to all the cars.
Before I left Japan, I spent a long time at Tokyo airport and I sat up on the roof and watched the ground crews at work on the apron.
As soon as the jumbos pulled up to the stand, all the service trucks conveyed out to it, in a very efficient way. When the plane got towed of the stand to taxi out to the runway, all the ground staff line up, wave to all the passengers and then bow .... it was very cool.
http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/albums/29_BowAtPlane_274_7401.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA2WElLWsbI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTHp8xAn0xo&feature=related
