Access Beijing

I can’t believe that I only have two more days left in Beijing! The time has flown by so quickly. Maybe it’s because we’ve been working so hard, but it feels like I just arrived yesterday. Still, I miss my family so much that I’m also excited about getting home.

It rained very hard today in Beijing—of course, this would happen on the day that the women’s beach volleyball finals were taking place. The rain cleared in the afternoon, but returned right on time for Shaun and Amanda Beard to shoot standups for the show tonight.

When I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, "I really don’t want to go down to watch beach volleyball; it’s POURING!" But then I ran into Hoda Kotb from "Today" in the lobby (Al Roker wore his swimsuit to the game!), who convinced me that I couldn’t miss this gold-medal game. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh playing China, defending their gold medal on the opponents' home turf.

Hoda is very convincing, so I put on my rain jacket, and off I went with Shaun Robinson, "Access" supervising producer Mike and our crew, Mike and Wally.

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Today was exciting around these parts… very, very exciting.

Michael Phelps’ final race–giving him 8 of 8 in ’08, and the most gold medals in Olympic history–was the stuff of legend.

The games are filled with moments–and this was the moment of all moments.

The energy inside of the International Broadcast Center (IBC) today was electrifying.

At 11 AM, dozens of NBC employees were gathered in the commissary watching Dara Torres’ and Michael Phelps’ final races together. There was cheering… sighing… and high drama–it was powerful and emotional. Even though most folks didn’t have tickets to the final races at the Water Cube, this felt like the next best place to be watching the action.

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One of the most exciting parts about being over in Beijing, amongst many high points, is that it’s the first time Access Hollywood has had an online staffer travel along with the TV team to an Olympics, which goes a long way to explain how important online coverage has become since 2004 — both to Access Hollywood, and to NBC Universal as a whole.

There are 16 bodies here in Beijing from Access Hollywood — 15 for the television show, and 1, namely, myself, for AccessHollywood.com. We all share a very small space together in the International Broadcast Center, and so we work very closely (figuratively, and literally… together).

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Last night, while shooting our show, a woman was standing in the crowd, holding this baby. I took a picture. Many others did too... this baby represents the youth of this country... steeped in history but young in capitalism and open society. There is innocence to all the people in China. They are very gracious and optimistic, patient and hopeful.

That baby says it all to me. I've tried to explain it.

I am currently waiting for Phelps at the side door to the “Water Cube”... an interview is my quest. The great thing about covering the Olympics, if you want to do it right, is you have to be willing to run, sweat, linger by a door, hustle and bump. We're doing that and you're all watching.

Thanks.

—Billy Bush

Greetings from 35,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean around 5 hours into a 12-hour journey to Beijing and the Summer Olympic Games, which begin at 08.08.08 at 8 PM.

These are my 9th Olympic Games. My first experience was for a camp trip in 1976 to Montreal where the city spent over $2 billion and it took the Montrealers decades to get out of debt. For these games the Chinese have spent $40 billion alone on Olympic venues, that's more than adjusted for inflation.

I am a huge Olympic fan having grown up watching the Games on ABC with Roone Arledge at the controls. My first memories were the 1968 Mexico City Games followed then by the tragic Munich Games of 1972. I was 12 at the time and will never forget the late, great Jim McKay bringing us the news, "they’re all gone," as the Israeli athletes were senselessly murdered by Palestinian terrorists in, of all places, Germany.

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