About Us
Your ordinary life makes our world precious.
What We Do
We provide opportunities for people to learn and taste other people's life and philosophies by sharing time, place, stories, and knowledge. With this life sampling approach, we create the places where people want to gather and a community where people feel themselves at home.
Who We Are
WE ARE A CONNECTOR.
We connect people to themselves and their lives through other people, stories, tradition, nature, and communities.
WE ARE A TREASURE HUNTER.
We help people to find their special beauties in their own lives and their communities. We appreciate our similarities and learn from our differences.
WE ARE A STORYTELLER.
We share and pass along our stories and wisdom we have received from Mother Earth and our ancestors. At the same time, we create and share our own stories.
WE ARE A CARETAKER.
We take care of our environment and our places by evaluating our impact on them and follow our responsibility to have healthier communities and an ecosystem.
Our Story
Living here, we believe that what makes Portland special and unique is the people who live here and their beautiful spirits. Although Portland is one of the whitest cities, we still think this place is filled with diverse human beings; people who have their diversity inside. People live here with their diverse backgrounds and stories.
Portland provides us many different options to meet our values from food to education. We can enjoy an organic farm-to-table dinner after eating super greasy deep-fried grilled cheese at lunch. Some parents send their children to highly academic-oriented kindergarten while others send their children to an outdoor school in the wood.
Portland is the place where people can find their happiness here and there, and it is the place where people can "feel" it is ok to be themselves. We wanted all Japanese visitors to know about that.
That's how life sampling was born.
There is a saying "A picture is worth a thousand words (百聞は一見にしかず)" but we believe that "an experience is worth a thousand pictures (百見は一行にしかず)". Therefore, we connect visitors to Portland locals and provide interactive experiences. Sharing and exchanging time, skill, and knowledge, like sampling each other's life, Japanese visitors can spend time in Portland as if they were one of the Portlanders.
We organize events and workshops in which people could visit local homes, be creative with local artists, make meals in the local kitchen, share stories around the campfire, have a picnic with local families, etc.
We also believe in the importance of mutual relationships (お互い様), so we have organized events and workshops for Portland people to learn and experience authentic Japanese life, including miso making workshops and food events based on Japanese micro seasons.
We provide opportunities for people to learn and taste other people's life and philosophies by sharing time, place, stories, and knowledge. With this life sampling approach, we create the places where people want to gather and a community where people feel themselves at home; we expand our home and our families.
Yuri
Baxter-Neal
Born in Japan, Yuri came to the US to study recreation. After she planned and ran recreational programs both in the US and Japan, she developed her career as a designer/product manager in the outdoor and home textile industries. In 2014, she started LIFE sampling with Sakiko Setaka, a writer and founder of Soen (www.soenportland.co), and has organized different types of experience-based and cross-cultural events, tours and workshops in both countries.
She is a project manager, storyteller, community place maker, nature lover, goofy mother, and an AML cancer thriver.