Standing on the top story of Basantapur Palace in Nepal, Yuan Mengxi is having a hard time connecting today’s reality with     1     she saw seven years ago.

The palace complex, located in the middle of Durbar Square in the country’s capital Kathmandu, was badly damaged in     2     massive earthquake in April 2015. The 9-story palace, a tourist landmark, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979.

The palace not only has great historical     3     (significant), but is also an architectural feat (功绩).

“You can see the whole place from here, and everything is beautiful and     4     order,” says Yuan, a 33-year-old originally from Zhengzhou, the capital of Central China’s Henan province. She is     5     (current) working for the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage and is in charge of a team sent     6     (rebuild) the palace.

She made her first work trip to Kathmandu in October 2015, six months after the earthquake     7     (shake) the city.

She says she was in shock     8     (see) the city after the quake at the time. Heritage buildings in Durbar Square     9     (destroy), with wooden statues buried and spread over a wide area. “Kathmandu Valley was still covered in the dust from the quake,” she recalls.

After the earthquake, both the Chinese and Nepali governments agreed to launch a project     10     (intend) for restoring the nine-story Basantapur Palace complex.

9 . In the early 1990s, Eric Domb, a highly successful lawyer, came up with the idea of building a bird park. His father-in-law _________ the idea in the beginning, but when the _________ started to take shape he backed out. Domb thus had to _________ money from former clients, his two brothers and father as well as a bank to build a zoological park known as Pairi Daiza.

After the park opened in 1994, his inexperience led to many _________, but he pushed on with his venture (冒险业). By 2000, the park was turning a profit, and Domb’s ambitions were _________. The park needed more than birds, he believed, and other creatures and cultural gardens would help turn it into something _________.

Since his childhood he has been fascinated by Chinese _________. In 2006, he built the first Chinese garden, Dream of Han Wu Di in his zoo. It was said to be the largest Chinese garden in Europe. Domb kept _________ new elements. It finally took more than six years to complete the project.

Domb felt _________ by the joint panda breeding program. Domb and his people spent the following months __________ building giant panda houses with no guarantee that Pairi Daizi would be fortunate enough to __________ giant pandas. The huge enclosure (围场) built includes a pool, cave and __________ plantation.

Now, Domb is eager to tell how he __________ a pair of giant pandas, Xing Hui and Hao Hao in February 2014. The sense of __________ is all the more profound (深刻) in that Pairi Daiza is one of the few private zoos outside China to __________ giant pandas.

How is everything going?

Yours,

Li Hua