Olympic Blues and Purples

The Water Cube in a purple mood.

When you begin watching NBC coverage of the Beijing Olympics, you will no doubt be told that the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest are impressive.

They are more than that.

Today, professors representing the international college students who have volunteered during the Beijing Games took a tour of the International Broadcast Center (home of the sprawling NBC headquarters) and the Main Press Center (where the newspaper guys hang out).

The facilities, as you might expect, were impressive, state-of-the-art, blah blah blah.

But when we finished, we took a walk down the street to stand just between the Bird’s Nest, the most impressive stadium I’ve seen, a stunning “tangle” of metal that looks like a giant piece of art.

And the Water Cube, a weird building that looks like its covered in bubbles, and if that’s not enough for you, it also changes colors. At one point, it even went multi-colored. American Michael Phelps should star inside that building in a few days, but tonight the outside was the star.

The Today Show Tonight: NBC’s Today Show will begin broadcasting live from Beijing Thursday evening China time/Thursday morning American time. NBC has also talked the Beijing Olympic committee into holding the finals of many feature events in the morning here, so they can be broadcast live to a primetime American audience.

Missouri Pins: Larry took a handful of the J-School pins down to the press center and was able to trade off a few. Me, I didn’t see the opportunity coming and failed to grab any. Next time, for sure. Another prof told us that there’s a Coca-Cola sponsored trading center at a park that I’ll have to try to find.

Out of pity, Larry did give me one pin that I gave to one of our Chinese guides.

She didn’t offer anything in return.

“Don’t lose it,” I told her.

“I won’t,” she said. “Missouri’s my dream school.”

So who needs a return?

Lobby talk: Today I had another conversation with the Chinese guard in the lobby. Actually, it was the same conversation we always have.

Him: “How are you?”

Me: “I’m good, how are you?”

Him: “Good.”

I laughed. Some people have their own song. The guard and I have our own conversation.

– Greg Bowers

Trinity Nelson, one of our Missouri group, is also blogging. OK, if you’ve been reading this blog by now you’ve realized that everyone is blogging. Check out Trinity’s here.

Lleyton Hewitt and the Austrailian tennis team meet the press in the MPC.

The “Water Cube” at Night

• The National Aquatics Center, also known as the “water cube,” site of the Olympic swimming events. Photo by Alex Monnig

You want to see more Beijing photos taken by Missouri School of Journalism students. You will click here.