About Me

Some people plan their lives in straight lines. Mine has always moved in spirals—circling back to old passions, discovering new ones, and occasionally stopping everything to ask whether the path I was on was actually mine.

I'm Nicole Simonek—half-Japanese, Santa Monica-based, and equal parts tech professional and relentless explorer. By day, I'm a Principal Technical Program Manager and Data Scientist. By everything else, I'm chasing the version of life that looks good on the inside, not just the résumé.

In early 2022 I took a sabbatical that changed everything. I stepped away from the grind, started learning French with the quiet ambition of working in Paris one day, earned two Sommelier certifications (the third in progress), and built a daily practice around mindfulness — walking meditations, sound baths, and a lot of intentional stillness I didn't know I needed. It wasn't a quarter-life crisis. It was a quarter-life correction.

This blog is what came out of that season.

Here you'll find honest writing about life in Los Angeles—the restaurants worth the wait, the beauty products that actually deliver, the trips that shift something in you, the cocktails and wines worth knowing, and the quieter stuff: what it looks like to build a meaningful life while holding down a demanding career.

What ties this blog together isn't a category, but a perspective. The lens of someone who can talk about cloud infrastructure at 9am and be recommending an Alsace Riesling from The Wine House by evening. Who approaches a skincare routine with the same analytical rigor as a technical specification. Who plans a trip to Japan with the depth of someone who grew up between two cultures. Who knows the best of the best—and will tell you exactly what's worth your money. I'm not a beauty blogger or a food critic or a travel writer. I'm a living contradiction, and this blog is my proof that you don't have to choose.

Not every post comes from expertise. Some come from trying something new and failing fearlessly. I believe that's where the most interesting writing lives.

If you're trying to live dynamically and deliberately—in LA or anywhere else—you're in the right place.

Featured in Voyage LA Magazine (twice)