Three Singaporeans were found safe on Thursday after getting lost on what they said was a mission to find a legendary karate expert on a snowy mountainside in Japan.
One of the three men told police in Hirosaki, near the northern tip of Japan’s main island, that they had come to Japan after his dying father, a martial arts expert, had ordered them to seek out the karate teacher, TV Asahi said on its Web site.
“Japan looked so small on the world map that we thought we would be able to find him straight away,” one of the group, aged between 25 and 50, was quoted as saying.
All three were dressed in light clothing and huddling in an abandoned car when they were rescued from the slopes of 1,600-metre (5,249-ft) Mount Iwaki in the early hours of the morning after calling for help on a mobile phone, a police spokesman said. “Neither police nor local people know of anyone running karate classes in this area,” the spokesman added.
Here, in case you’re interested, is a size-comparison picture of Singapore and Japan (thanks be to MultiMap).
