1 . He Cuiying lives on a mountain peak in Yunnan province, at an altitude of 3,000 meters. Every morning, the 91-year-old woman is _______ by floating fog, which creates a fairy-tale landscape.

Four years ago, He Cuiying opened a homestay (民宿) in her yard with the help of her granddaughter, He Qingmei. Ever since, she has _______ her stories, the beautiful scenery and the _______ culture of her village with visitors from across China and other parts of the world.

He Cuiying is a member of the Naxi ethnic group, while her husband is from the Tibetan ethnic group and he is a _______ in Tibetan Buddhism. In Qibie village, He Cuiying’s home, eight ethnic minorities live _______ in the same village, where local people _______ 102 homestays.

The villagers say they have turned “houses into homestays and people into _______”. They speak the Naxi language, _______ Tibetan customs and warmly welcome tourists from all over the world. In just eight years, they have developed a _______ multiethnic (多民族的) homestay village, becoming a key demonstration project for cultural ________ in Yunnan.

He Cuiying loves ________. Whenever guests visit her home, she sings songs and offers blessings continuously. Her favorite song is Chairman Mao Is Like the Sun. She remembers how the remote village was liberated and ________ poverty under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, so she has a sincere ________ for Beijing as the capital city.

Now, as He Cuiying gets older, He Qingmei and her cousins are gradually ________ the homestay. They hope to share the beautiful scenery and stories of Grandma’s home with more people through the ________ of guests from all over the world.

2 . I found a wonderful picture of Maolan karst cones online and presented it to the innkeeper. “You can’t go there,” the innkeeper ______ me. “The viewing platform has been closed due to ______ that too many visitors could cause geological damage.”

Despite our disappointment, we ______ an alternative: a seven-hour hike through the “funnel forest”. Initially, we were ______ to run the risk. However, I had ______ the tourism motto in the nature reserve: “If you don’t do it now, you won’t do it in your lifetime.” Three of our group ______ decided to venture into the forest. The innkeeper responded with a knowing ______ : “Great. Bear Grylls went there.”

The next morning, we set off with a local ______ . Rain came and went three times, and before I actually ______ to climb over the first mountain, I had already got wet to the skin. I was a walking ______ of mud and water.

Our guide, in his 50s, behaved like a botanist, introducing the locally specific plants to us, but I was hardly in the ______ . Every step sank into the muddy, sucking ground. Every log or rock in front of us was a physical ______ . “One can never reach those places without strong willpower,” I murmured, reciting that millennium-old ______ , over and over again.

Sinkholes and entrances to underground rivers kept popping up along our ______ . Thinking of them leading to an unknown world, I began to ______ the road that I can control even more.

Wandering in a green chaos without any obvious landmarks is also breathtaking.

3 . In 2019, I went on a winter break trip with my family. One of our _________ was London. The first thing that I _________ when I landed in London was the weather. It was too _________ for my liking as it required me to wear a thick jacket.

After some _________ using a map of London, we decided to go to Buckingham Palace first.

Buckingham Palace was one of the _________ of a “hop-on, hop-off (随上随下)” bus that we took. The palace itself didn’t look very big or impressive from the entrance _________ it got much more impressive when you entered the gates.

While continuing on the “hop-on, hop-off” bus, we _________ the London Bridge, which I didn’t notice until the driver pointed it out to me. While it felt kind of special to be driving on such an iconic (符号的) bridge, the _________ was not as cool as one would imagine it to be.

Besides its history, this bridge was just another bridge that _________ two masses of land, something that pretty much all __________ do.

When we __________ Big Ben, we decided to hop off the bus and take some __________. Big Ben was a pretty __________ experience for me. In many pictures of London, Big Ben is a very visible (看得见的) building in the skyline, and it was very nice for me to see the clock tower __________. I am a big fan of skyscrapers (摩天大楼) and skyscraper-like buildings so this clock tower certainly caught my __________.

4 . I've always loved mountaineering (登山) and the mental and physical challenges that go with it. This time the peak (山峰) of Mt. Whitney is my ______. There are quite a few ways up to the big mountain, but we ______ the traditional one at last, almost 12 miles to the top.

I decided to make this trip less about ______ and more about the climb and my personal journey with a friend. Thinking about it this way, I decided to carry only one camera to ______ the course, but it still added 3.2 pounds to my backpack, which ______ 2.8 pounds without the camera equipment. Fortunately, climbing with a friend ______ sharing the weight, keeping our packs a little lighter. Therefore, we ______ reached the top just two days later. This particular trip was prepared for a personal trip on purpose to get to the peak and enjoy the breathtaking ______.

Climbing such tall peaks ______ every aspect of you, as a nature photographer. It can test both your physical strength and photographic ______. Can you imagine being 14,000 feet up, ______ the thin air of the high-altitude (海拔) environment while also trying to be ______ with your compositions (作品)? That’s what we were doing! And that’s the joy that comes with climbing Mt. Whitney as well.

Like any other ______ in nature, there are risks in mountaineering, though, Extreme altitude and the unpredictable (无法预测的) weather will test even the most ______ climber. Despite the fact, mountaineering for me is all about the experiences, which makes me live to the ______.

5 . In life, do you choose to take the road everyone has taken, or do you choose the path that is best for you? It might be ________ to choose what everyone has done, especially if it seemed to work for them. But is that what truly ________ for you?

On a recent hiking ________, my partner and I decided to take a popular trail in the ________ direction. This was an old, well-traveled trail that people had been hiking and biking from A to Z for years. For our own reasons, we chose to travel from Z to A. Going backwards made more sense with my ________. The trip would take several days and going backwards ________ that I would end the trip closer to the airport for my flight home.

As my partner and I walked, everyone crossing our path had something to say, “You're going the wrong way. Are you lost? Are you returning ________ you forgot something? Are you crazy? The path occasionally crossed a ________. When it did, even passing cars beeped to ________ us in the “right” direction.

Why did people only see one way? Because that's what everyone does? Because that's how it's always been done? We even ________ to talk to a Danish woman who said, “We have a(n)       ________ in my country: when you go backwards to everyone else, it's because you're avoiding something.” I couldn't believe it. We were just enjoying connecting with nature, hiking the way that best ________ us. Had we gone the “wrong” way? No. At least, not for us.

I decided to ________ the path I chose. ________, we had an amazing experience. Choosing the “wrong” path was right for me. When your inner ________ tells you something is right (or wrong), listen to it. It's your instinct. It's speaking to you for a reason and it knows, better than anyone, what's best for you.