a lovely gesture

We have new neighbors, a Japanese couple and their new baby girl, who looks to be about three weeks old. The wife rang our doorbell earlier this evening, said hello, gestured over to her own front door across the way and said something in Japanese, which I took to be along the lines of, we live over there now, and handed me a gift in a cute little 'Wa-Bi-Sa' shopping bag.

Accompanying her was the baby's grandmother, and she was carrying the little thing, with her black spiky hair, all swaddled in a pink blanket. Kawaii desu, I said (she's cute), thus giving the false impression that I could actually converse in Japanese. The women started chatting away and I shook my head and gave them my standard line, Nihongo sukoshi hanashimasu, gomen nasai (I only understand a little Japanese, so very sorry) but then managed to convey that I had futari otokonoko (two boys), and they were hachi-sai and kyu-sai (ages 8 and 9), and then I gave her our card with our names and phone numbers and she wrote their names and digits down on a scrap of paper for me. Hajimeimashite!

Inside the bag was a wrapped box; we removed the wrapping paper to reveal a box tied up with string; we untied the string, removed the lid on the box, and lifted the delicate layer of tissue paper to uncover six individually wrapped packages of "Kahoron" cookies, said to "combine finest European confectionery with Japanese ingredients." Here's a picture:

Oishii!