![[Performer of a Japanese Kabuki theater; photograph by L. Ron Hubbard.]](img/pg21_1.jpg)
At nine o’clock the next night we reached Kobe. All the passengers went ashore, some to shop, others to go to eat sukiyaki and drink saki. (Incidentally we got stuck in a shopping party and it was not until after we were in Guam some time that we had our sukiyaki dinner, cooked especially for us by the Japanese restaurant proprietor.)
Kobe’s Main Street is a brilliantly lighted, highly pirated shopping district for the especial attraction of tourists. To purchase real Japanese articles necessitates visiting the dark narrow bystreets, and small upstairs shops where prices are surprisingly low.
The shoes worn by these people are heavy things made of wood, held on by clenching the toes. They are left on the outer step of the house or shop, so that the acquiring of a pair of new shoes is simplified.
The clothes of the men consist of a European felt hat, a grey cloak tied with a big sash containing pockets and a pair of shoes about four inches high. The women wear trousers, ankle length, a high-necked, loose-sleeved coat and slippers. Their hair is combed straight back and held with hairpins. The geisha girls wear the fancy headdress and the big bow decorated kimono and shoes five inches high.
Going back to the ship in our rickshaws about one in the morning, we saw many beggars bedded down for the night in the dirty streets. They lay down to sleep anywhere any time sleep overcomes them. They were a diseased looking lot.
Next morning we were steaming through the famous Inland Sea. Queer little boats were around us. The land each side rose in mountain terraces intensively cultivated. Water and sky were a deep blue. About four in the afternoon we passed two cities on opposite shores, about two miles apart. Ferries were plying back and forth, huge chimneys on factories smoking and evidence of great activity. Picturesque at a distance, the close-up was probably the usual congestion of population and the dirt....
![[Late 1920s Chinese coinage, or Mex.]](img/pg20_2.jpg)
The most impressive sight in all the ports was the great amount of shipping; all the commercial countries of the world were represented. Fishing is a great industry and in the Inland Sea there were thousands of fishing boats. Some of them were queer ones, with eyes carved in front and a little man with a big hat and a short coat worked the unwieldy oar that served as rudder. These boats carry the entire family. Cooking is done on a charcoal stove, the invariable meal boiled fish and boiled rice. Flour is unknown and other vegetables are too expensive.
