I was in New York, visiting a Chinese friend who didn't know that I could read Japanese. For some reason she pointed out a clothing store as we passed by, and I noticed that "ホテル Venus" was painted rather prominently on the window, so I asked her why a clothing store had a sign that said "Hotel Venus."

She said it didn't say that, so I clarified that the "Hotel" part was in Japanese. She said that it couldn't be that, because if it were Japanese, "Hotel" would have been written in Chinese characters, like 旅館 or something, and gave a lengthy explanation about why that was. I tried to explain that sometimes English words are spelled out phonetically in Japanese, but she wasn't having it. In her defense, I am an inveterate bullshitter.

Anyway, we bet on it, and agreed to have her Japanese friend arbitrate. I don't think we found the friend until a day or two later, and the whole time she was gloating about how she was going to win the bet. When we finally ran into her, I wrote down ホテル and asked her what it said, and she said, "That says hotel." My Chinese friend was visibly shocked, and couldn't figure out how I could possibly have known that. I don't remember what the bet was, but the real prize was turning the tables after she'd been preemptively gloating for day or two.