In NZ for helicopters its skids up to skids down! We don't care about how long you are sitting on the ground playing with the controls with the blades spinning.
And i love "until the blades stop", i landed the other day, good wind from about the 8 oclock position kept driving the main blades through the tail rotor for quite a while. even after we stopped the blades by hand, if we let them go the wind was trying to start them again. i could have sat there all day and logged another few hrs.
regarding counting landings, depending upon the aircraft and operation type, some aircraft for the purpose of some cycle counting require Take offs, and external lifts to be counted, some operations want to know the number of "flights" made. I record in a diary up and down times, and have a counter attached to the A/c that i click each time i pick a load on the hook. end of the day you can tell how many loads you have done, and how many take offs, etc.
you can also check that the hobbs is working properly.