BG Report: Capsule hotel room in Nagoya

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I finally had one of Japan’s quintessential experiences: I stayed overnight in a “sleep pod” in a capsule hotel. It was the Nine Hours Hotel in Nagoya.

The hotel’s name refers to their notion that the shortest possible hotel stay that includes a decent night’s sleep would be nine hours. So, you get one hour to shower and dress for bed in the provided pajamas, sleep for seven hours, and spend an hour waking up and having breakfast. That’s the idea, anyway.

You can of course stay longer, and I checked in around 6pm. The hotel is on ten floors, and there are three floors of sleep pods each for women and for men. Each gender has a dedicated floor for lockers and showers as well, and there’s a tenth-floor lounge with views of the city for everyone. Even the elevators are separate.

My blood sugar, just before dinnertime, was 75. A tad on the low side of acceptable. I walked in the rain to a nearby convenience store, Lawson. I wasn’t in the mood to wander the streets of Nagoya and find something to eat, in the rain. Plus I wanted to try out the tenth floor lounge – the staff had told me it was ok to bring in food and eat it there. (No eating in your pod!)

I got my usual konbini fare – rice ball, yogurt with sweet powdered walnuts dumped in, fried chicken nuggets, diced pineapple, a tiny piece of chocolate for dessert, and a beer. The carbs for all of this is written on each package, so I knew how much it was. I also knew that sometimes convenience store food has a bit more power than I might think. So, I took a pretty decent-sized shot. The views, despite the rain, were quite nice indeed.

Later, after my shower, I was in my pod and I checked. I expected it to be a bit high, but was pleased that it was 178. My BG often trends downward at night, so I want it to be in the upper 100s before bed.

I turned out the light and had a sometimes good, sometimes fitful sleep in my pod. (I didn’t actually mind the snoring so much, but the various alarms going off between 5:00 and 7:00 made it really hard to stay truly asleep then.)

I’d opted for the breakfast, which meant a decent-sized scone and some carefully-prepared, complexly-poured coffee. (I am not really into “coffee culture” and don’t understand what all that does; any old grungy coffee maker is fine with me. But the special Kenyan coffee was indeed fruity and delicious and drinkable with the scone, as the lady who cheerfully prepared it explained.)

Actually, at 1 am, I’d checked one more time and was still pretty much exactly the same – 171. So it seemed steady, and now before the scone I was a perfect 102 around 7:45 am. I took 5 units of Humalog for the scone, found my train to Osaka inside Nagoya station, and in my seat onboard, took my daily Tresiba (basal insulin) shot.

Later, before lunch, my BG was 83. Perfect. What this means is that, basically, I had a perfect stay, diabetically speaking, at the Nine Hours Capsule Hotel in Nagoya. Perfect experience, I’d say!

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