CARLSBAD -- Ten Pacific Ridge students who had been quarantined for a week in China after some of their classmates developed symptoms of swine flu returned to the school's Bressi Ranch campus Saturday night, where they were met by a celebratory mob of classmates and family members.

Two teachers returned with the group that flew into Los Angeles International Airport, then took a shuttle bus to the school. Another group of 15 students and two teachers was due in on a later flight and expected to arrive on campus early Sunday, school officials said.

Five students and one teacher who were confirmed to have the H1N1 virus are recovering in a hospital in Yichang, China, awaiting final test results before they can be released, said Anne Carr, a spokeswoman for the private school. She said all the patients were doing well.

Another teacher who tested negative for the virus remained behind to support the group.

There were hugs, kisses, leis and balloons for the 10 freshmen who arrived in Carlsbad on Saturday. The students had been cleared to return Thursday after duplicate negative tests for the virus and seven days of quarantine, in most cases, at a four-star Yichang hotel. Yichang is a city of 4 million people, roughly 750 miles east of Shanghai.

John Ballif, 15, of Fallbrook, said he was treated well in the hotel by a team of Chinese nurses, who arrived in biohazard suits three times a day to give him meals and take his temperature.

"They were really, really great," John said of the nurses. "It was nice to see them without their masks at the end," adding that he gave all his caretakers hugs.

Students at the hotel were isolated in individual rooms, though they were able to talk to each other from doorways and talk on the telephone. A few days into the trip, they were provided computers, and some students talked to family and friends back home by video chat, John's father, Mark Ballif, said.

John said he talked to his hospitalized classmates by phone and none of them seemed too worried, even after being confirmed with the swine flu.

"I don't think there was any time they were worried; they were just bummed they were missing out on some of the activities," he said.

The students were in China on a 13-day educational tour that began June 2, when some of them developed mild flu symptoms, school officials said. Some started feeling sick aboard a river cruise to the Three Gorges Dam. They saw a doctor on the boat and were later admitted to the hospital.

The group had originally been due to return Monday, June 15, before being placed in quarantine.

Parent Sharri Sapp said that when she learned students in her daughter's group had suspected cases of swine flu, she wasn't too worried. At that point, no one in San Diego County had died of the disease, and most cases turned out to be mild, she said.

"And we felt they were in safe hands," she said, because all the students were being well cared for by their teachers and the Chinese government.

Since that time, 20-year-old San Marcos resident Adela Chevalier succumbed to the virus at Palomar Hospital in Escondido. As of Thursday, the county had recorded 290 confirmed H1N1 cases, with 25 people requiring hospitalization, health officials said.

Stephanie Sapp, 15, was in a room by herself at the Chinese hospital during the quarantine period. Although she was later confirmed negative for swine flu, she was sent to the hospital because of an elevated temperature during her initial check-up.

Stephanie said it was a few days before she got a phone and could start talking to her parents and friends regularly. She read books and listened to her iPod to pass the time. And she worried, just a bit, until she learned she didn't have the virus.

"Not knowing was a little scary," she said.

She said the best part of getting out of quarantine was "being able to talk to people by my own free will."

And she missed human touch, she said.

"The first thing I did was give my teacher a big hug."

Call staff writer Sarah Gordon at 760-740-3517.