slurping is nice... I asked a japanese friend if it was or bad manners to do it and she told me it was actually good manners, that you were showing your were liking the food... that was all it took to not make me feel bad to slurp
first it wasn't that easy, now I can do it with lots of ramen or udon hehehe... at the beginning I tried with ramen and I couldn't make it go up either, but I noticed that I was closing the mouth to much, fearing the ramen would fall if I didn't hold it with my lips
with some practice, I noticed that I shouldn't be trying that, that I had to hold them and bring them up sucking them, so I let go the ramen a bit with my lips, enough that I wasn't holding them any more, and sucked hard... they went up really well!
with more drilling, you'll get to a point where you won't spill the soup on the table too much, or your face when the last part of the ramen -or udon or whatever- goes into your mouth, by controlling your suck hehe
you have to suck just enough, not too much so you don't throw soup around, or so little that it'll fall... of course, if you need to stop to get a breath, you hold it with your teeth of lips for a moment... you can help them up a bit with your chopsticks too, although you won't always need it
I do put my chopsticks on both sides of the ramen, a bit under half way up to my mouth, so that they don't move around when I get them up, more to keep them straight than getting them up, but without holding them
slurp away
