Even on a bullet train Tokyo stretches forever, the apartment blocks stacked on top of each other for a seemingly perennial distance. At 200kph they hurtle past, a continuous blur of urbanity filling the window.

I wonder if the Japanese developed their small hips because of the miniscule distances between apartment blocks?

I’ve been watching this built-up blur since accidently splashing soy sauce over my neighbour’s lap during a battle with my own chopsticks. Avoiding eye contact by gazing outside I’ve been searching for green space, but Tokyo just goes on and on.

Clearing his throat, my neighbour gently says, “excuse me”. I turn, glancing at the stain on his pinstripe. “In Japan,” he says “we must take out mortgages that can be passed to our children. There is no space so the land costs too much.”

As we reach the world’s busiest train station, Shinjuku, the squashed city comes into focus; rows of diminutive windows and one metre squared. I wonder if the Japanese developed their small hips because of the miniscule distances between apartment blocks?

But once off the train the streets never feel crowded, despite me being one of 3.5 million to use this station today. In a fast food noodle bar an ex-pat tells a story: “In two years of getting on four trains a day only once was one late. It was late by four minutes… I thought the people waiting were going to start a riot.”

Yoshinoya, a Japanese version of McDonald’s, delivers strict portion sizes within seconds of ordering. I can choose between noodles, and noodles with a piece of meat, with the option of a raw egg on the side.

As I continue my fight with Japanese cutlery I notice that the average voracious local consumes his (women don’t seem to eat here) meal in less than 90 seconds. Eating, walking, talking, it feels like the whole of Tokyo is on fast-forward, an entire city attempting to emulate a Charlie Chaplin sketch. Until I get on a local train.

Half the carriage is fast asleep. People sleep sat down, drooling over their smart- phones, or they snooze stood up, being jolted temporarily awake at each stop.

It’s a circular route so I stay on board, waiting for the reaction of the person who wakes up to scream in frustration at missing their stop. But it doesn’t materialise, as each station’s name is ecstatically screamed out by the announcer as if she was introducing a heavyweight boxing champion and each person opens their eyes just in time.

The woman sat beside me has an orange face and expertly arises to “HAAARAAAHHJUUUKKU.” Do you always sleep on trains I ask? “Of course. It takes 45 minutes for me to get to work, what else would I do?”

Harajuku girls are famous all over Japan, and every Sunday they come to the same park to show off their unique style. Some look like Mary Poppins, others like punks, who have discovered the scope of a rainbow; all excel in turning the eye. They appear as a national congregation of misfits, coming to a safe place to rebel against monotone culture. I can’t find a single one who hasn’t painted their face a random colour.

Down the street is Shibuya, another of the city’s unique people phenomena. As I cross the street a wall of people 50 wide comes towards me. I’m not scared. I reckon I’m one of 60 people walking towards them. But there is no Braveheart scene of violence as we meet, each person nimbly sidestepping between and through.

From above, this Shibuya crossing is more impressive. When the vehicles stop, approximately 1,000 people cross the street and go about their day. For two minutes, the crowd quickly gathers again, before the green man submerges the tarmac under a deluge of footsteps.

The Starbucks I’m sat in is apparently the busiest in the world, its balcony overlooking the bizarre tourist attraction. I count, but I lose count instantaneously, unable to even track the hordes that run across as their time is evaporating.

Where are they going? I follow one (subtly, and in the name of research), imagining the inimitable story. He gets on a train. I lose two more in the crowd.

But a fourth unwitting pedestrian takes a hidden side entrance and brings me into a manga cartoon shop. Developed in the late 19th century, manga cartoons are a national institution. Each one I open over-stimulates, exaggerated drawings stuffed onto the thin paper, multiple visual cues leaving me in confusion.

I’m half expecting an overweight geek in oversized spectacles to reprimand me for not understanding the difference in artwork between Kimi ni Todoke and Blue Exorcist, but the cartoon lovers in this shop fit an entirely different stereotype. They’re skinny, middle-aged men in suits, joyfully soaking up the colourful fiction without a hint of haughtiness.

My man goes downstairs, to the underground lair of imagistic madness. Rows of magazines display graphics of bare-breasted teenage-looking females covered in computerised man fluid. That’s on the front cover; I don’t dare try the inside, unlike the others who unabashedly explore this strange cartoon porn dungeon.

At least it’s hidden away, unlike the repulsive smell that I’m following the subsequent morning. Covered in a veil of mist the Tsujiki fish market only becomes visible at the last second, an eternal assembly of 1.5-metre fish filling a bare warehouse.

Frozen tunas smash into my shins as I inadvertently walk through the auction. They reckon this fish market is over a kilometre long but all eyes are on one diminutive man and his stepladder.

Each piece of tuna takes around five seconds to be individually auctioned, the winner stabbing his spoils with one of Captain Hook’s spare handpieces. For over three hours an assistant moves the stepladder until the entire warehouse has been sold.

But the cat’s favourite snack isn’t Tokyo’s only famous export. Akihabara is the centre of Japan’s legendary electronics industry and from above I can only assume it resembles a throbbing mess of amplified neon.

Increasing the luminosity, each building is built exclusively from glass, reflecting every famous brand in its vivid glory. A toy helicopter buzzes above my head, portable speakers compete, and billions of LED’s flash for attention. It’s loud, strange and an overbearing assault on the senses. Where else in the world does such a place exist?

But Akihabara is another example of how Tokyo stands out from other destinations. It’s a city whose attractions don’t require entrance fees or hyperbole. Pedestrian crossings, neon lights, trains: the sights of Tokyo are the things that appear absolutely natural to the locals.

With so much crammed into the city boundaries it’s impossible to turn two corners without finding something unusual to your Western eyes.

Returning to Shibuya crossing, I find the Ranking Ranqueen, a place that ranks the nation’s bizarre consumer products by popularity: soap that makes your hair shorter; lotions and potions; tools that chop, grate, exorcise and create; everything required to make your head shorter, whiter, straighter and scarier.

Jump in, become part of the crowd, and enjoy the insanity.