BGs on Japan’s longest local train ride
7-hour local train ends up in the middle of nowhere • Iida Line
Watch on YouTube (30:00)
A fantastic train ride, and thanks to the train schedule, no high BGs on the entirety of Japan’s longest local train service.
Five trains per day go along the entire Iida Line in central Japan, but one of them is a bit longer than the rest. That’s the one I took – six hours and 59 minutes from Toyohashi up to Okaya.
But it leaves at 2:38 pm, which meant I had to spend all day loitering around Toyohashi, killing time.
After my breakfast at the buffet in my hotel, I checked out and found a Tully’s coffee shop near the station. While sitting there for a few long and dull hours, I experienced my not-uncommon breakfast spike. A bit higher than usual today – 290 at its peak.
On my way to buy glucose from a drug store in Toyohashi. Amused by the old bald guys waiting for the mall to open – then I realized I was one of them!
A corrective dose of Humalog started bringing it slowly down. By the time it was noon and I got a pasta plate for lunch, it was 209. (“Mashi,” as you say in Japanese – better, if not exactly good.)
By the time the train ride actually began, I was in the lower-to-mid 100s. After about an hour on the train, as we pushed through the relative flatlands on the way to the mountains, I was 130.
And I pretty much held steady all day on the train. We got into the thickest part of the deep mountains, stopping at stations so remote that the *only* reasonable way to get there is the train.
I had a snack on board (I brought it with me) of coffee and a doughnut. And overdid the shot for it; a while later I was 77.
At dinner around 7 pm – and by “dinner” I mean time to dig into the plastic bag with convenience store food I bought back in Toyohashi to eat in my seat – I was 170 and rising. Good time to take a shot for the food and to stem the rising BG.
It was fine. I spiked to 190 and started coming down. We arrived in Okaya after 9 pm and I checked into my grungy but cheerful hotel. The last check before bed was 92; I had a bit of glucose, waited for it to level out, and went to sleep.
On the entire 7-hour ride, I wasn’t over 200 once. I’ll take that any day.
