At Beijing, site of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the group felt right at home with a stop at McDonald’s and the Harley Davidson store. Much less Americanized was the Lucky Duck restaurant where every part of the duck was prepared for eating.

“The food was interesting,” Seagle said. “There is no waste in China. They cooked every part of that duck. The beak and feet were made into a soup, and the heart tasted like filet mignon. They even used the blood for a Jell-O-like mix.”

For some students there wasn’t room for Jell-O but Cathey said he did like the pig snout.

“We ate that several times,” said Cathey, who admitted that his large size made him a favorite of the smaller Chinese people.

The ABAC contingent walked through the history of China with a tour of Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City, which is an imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty.

Although both venues were closed, the ABAC students snapped many pictures at the Bird’s Nest (the Olympic Stadium), and the Water Cube, the Olympic swimming facility where Michael Phelps won his gold medals.

Lindsay Liu proved quite a link to Georgia when she told them about her role as Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue’s liaison for commerce between China and The Peach State.

The team chair-lifted to the top of the Great Wall and then took sleds back down. Grist even did a hand-stand on top of the Wall, which is 4,163 miles long, although the version of today is not continuous because there has been some deterioration after 2,000 years. The purpose of the Wall was to protect the Ming Dynasty from the Huns to the north.

Morris, the only female among the ABAC travelers, said she loved the view from atop the Wall. She did find a little fault with some of the local restrooms.

“A couple of those places only had holes in the floor for toilets,” Morris said. “I don’t think I really got used to that.”

Another three-hour flight to Lijiang opened the door for a visit to the Blue Moon Lagoon Valley. The students had their first encounter with yaks, the local water buffalo, and toured the Jade Snow Dragon Mountain Golf Course, the longest course in the world, which is framed on one side by the Himalayas.

At an elevation of 12,000 feet, the students took turns driving golf balls on the Jade Snow Dragon range and tasted yak soup.

“Bigger is better over there,” Carney, who also serves as president of the student body at ABAC, said. “The golf courses are just so beautiful. My impression of China is just beyond anything I could have imagined.”

Seagle and the students flew back to Shenzhen from Lijiang and then boarded a JetFerry for an hour-long water trip to Hong Kong.

Alywin Tai, managing director of Richtone Worldwide Limited, met them there.