Over the weekend they had college testing exams at all the universities around Tokyo. May have been all over Japan but I'm not sure.

This meant that I actually got bumped from my hotel to make room for students needing to take their exams at one of the five colleges in the area.

We (my country manager and I) looked all around for hotels around Tokyo for several hours and couldn't find much of anything.

Finally, we found a business hotel in Shin-Yokohama well south - booked it for a couple of nights and I headed off on the train. It took about two hours with three train changes to get there.

The hotel was much like any other business hotel that I've been to before - with one notable exception. The toilet seat had a remote control. I'll elaborate.

It seems like every time I come to Japan I get here just in time for some over-the-top sports celebration.

This trip is no exception. I suppose that most anyone interested in the Winter Olympic Games watched Shizuka Arakawa win the Gold Medal in women's figure skating last night (or whatever time it was in that time of the world - I won't really know what day or time it is for a few days as I'm in that lag zone.)

Arakawa-san really skated the only fault free round in the replays I've seen. Of course, since I've been here (really just for a few hours now), I've seen her free skate on pretty much every channel at least five or six times - and two live interviews so far. This nation is going berserk once again!

They had assemblies of hundreds of people at movie theaters, karaoke bars, and whatever passes for sports bars here - all wearing Japanese flag adorned headbanks and waving Japanese flags. They were from every age group and socioeconomic strata - and their jubilation is just another one of those strange Japanese things that never ceases to amaze me.

(Image: Getty Images)

Arakawa-san delivered a technically brilliant and elegant performance. Every other contender (including American favorite Sasha Cohen) fell.

It's the first medal of these Olympic games for Japan. And it's the first Gold Medal for Japan in women's figure skating in history.

(Image: Getty Images)

Even if no self-respecting Japanese person would ever think of becoming the spittle covered, flag wrapped, business suit torn, idiot faced, should be committed to an institution for demon possession minion that I've seen by the thousands on TV today - I say let 'em go crazy. This is an historic moment. Besides, they are hilariously funny to watch. God Bless 'em.

Flying to Japan later today.

Yes, yes, there will be beautiful, uncontroversial pictures from Japan soon!

Dear Mrs. Hapke offered thoughts on expanding at table yesterday and in the ensuing comments she asked me whether I had ever eaten fugu - the Takifugu pufferfish or blowfish - in Japanese: 鰒 - a sought after delicacy in Japan.

I told my affirmative story there - and I thought later that I might have had pictures. I found them - they were taken with my Japan cell phone so admittedly are not of very good quality, but they do offer proof of my assertions.

See, most Japanese people will say that they absolutley do not eat fugu liver because it is the organ in which most of the tetrodotoxin poison resides. But, in Oita, on Kyushu island, it is all part of the multi-course dinner...

I made a new discovery at Kichijoji Park on my last visit. I noticed a large steep stairway on the west-southwest side of the temple area and walked up. Most of the walkways from the park just go into the surrounding residential or business areas and this seems to do the same - except when you arrive at the top of the stairs (in this case), you are presented with an entire city block of a temple compound.

And this is not some dilapidated old temple in disrepair. In fact, there's a lot of gold on these buildings...

Some time before I arrived in Kichijoji last week, they decorated for Christmas. That's prior to the second week in November. In their continuous fixation on all things American, they've gone whole hog for the commercial aspects of the season. This is the earliest I've seen any sort of Christmas decorations starting this early in Japan - in the last three years that I've been traveling there.

Coming out of the park, I noticed that some of the shops had some decorations up...

This reminded me of what I had seen earlier in the week at the L. L. Bean store. So I thought it would be interesting to look around town for the decorations on display...

It wasn't blossom season in Inokashira Park - but the colors were just as beautiful. It began at the entrance to the park...

The crows in Japan are huge. Their voices are also like Siamese cat meows are to a Tabby.

This guy was pretty sure that this post on the bridge belonged to him. He wasn't going to leave no matter how close I got...

Inokashira Park is centered around some long, narrow ponds. Many of the views that I enjoy are through the trees on one side of a pond to the other side - which in the best case is lit with sunlight.

The problem is that cameras have very poor dynamic resolution in back-lit cases like these. I took one of my external flash units with me on this trip and I used it to attempt to catch the good backlight but fill in the foreground some as well.

This is a very delicate process - and I certainly haven't perfected it - distances, actual ambient light, reflection and other factors are at play. But I did get some good results.

There's something very rich about the backlit colors of fall with something other than a totally black foreground. The shrub on the lower right is too lit by the flash and the reflector on the pole is annoying - but those can be fixed with p'shop...

There were significantly more waterfowl in Inokashira Park when I visited, er, yesterday was it?

I haven't seen this many here before.

I've heard that you should get these in a row...