Simon

Simon is a Canadian Youtuber. Simon and Martina are both the co-owners of Eat Your Kimchi website & Youtube. Eat Your Kimchi was a vlog channel that introduced aspects of Korean, Japanese, and Canada culture to their viewers. They lived in Korea for seven years prior to residing in Tokyo, Japan.

Early Life
Simon Stawski was born to a family of Polish migrants. He has a brother who is 13 years older than him and a sister who is 10 years older than Simon. His mother was a lawyer and his father worked as a VP at a food technology company while in Poland. However, his parents decided to move to Canda with his brother and sister to start a better life for Simon and his brother. Simon was born quickly after they moved to Canada, weighing a huge 10 pounds.

Due to Simon's parents being Polish, his first language was Polish before learning English along with his mother by watching Sesame Street. He stopped learning Polish when he started school due to all his classmates only speaking English.

Simons's parents no longer worked as a lawyer or Vp's so his father became a pizza delivery guy and his mother cleaned motels until they moved to Toronto where they found better jobs that used their degrees.

Simon moved from Rexdale to Pickering after a few months, however, they move again into a different house in Pickering due to the previous house being haunted. While the Stawski family lived in the haunted house his mother's friend visited them however she died in the house despite being healthy. After tapping the room off the family called a priest to bless the house which however caused the kitchen to catch on fire so they left the house quickly after that.

Simon 'worshiped' his brother so he learned to play basketball due to his older brother being remarkable at it. Soon Simon also was remarkable at basketball but he preferred to play streetball.

Simon skipped Grade 3 due to his higher academic ability. He hated being in the upper grade since it meant leaving his friends behind and being a loner. Simon was bullied until grade 5 when he made friends playing basketball. He stopped trying hard in school and focused on basketball as it got him friends who were from Trinidad, Nigeria, Jamaica, and Detroit. However, when Simon went to Poland on his 16th birthday to visit family, knowing he would be away and what time his parents worked, his friends broke into his home, stole items, and trashed it in the process. Luckily they were caught trying to sell the stolen items at a pawn shop. Simon the. ended the friendship and has nothing to do with them.

Simon moved to a different school in his final year to improve his grades but he made no close friends. He managed to get into the University of Toronto, St. George campus located in downtown Toronto, to study English literature. Simon pushed himself to do well, resulting in a perfect GPA in the first two years of university. He then decided he would like to become a professor. Simon however still was not happy as he had no friends and had not had a girlfriend for five years. He had low confidence, anxious and feeling depressed. However, he met Martina on September 13, 2004 where she taught Simon to have confidence again while introducing him to different music, friends and coffee. Martina also tried hooking Simon up with a friend which ended badly and Martina had a boyfriend at the time but Simon respected their relationship and was there for Martina when she needed help. After Martina broke up with her boyfriend, Simon and Martina began to date on the 28th of March 2005, then Simon proposed a year later and then they got married on the 16th of June 2007.

Simon and Martina moved to Windsor, Ontario into a small three-story apartment on Wyandotte St the day after they got married. They then went to teachers' college but they were broke as they had large student loans and lived on their credit cards for a year. While in the college they watched a presentation on teaching in Korea which made them consider moving to Korea. Simon used to teach at a Hagwon in Toronto and Martina loved Korean culture. So they spoke to the presenters and they managed to get a job in Bucheon a week later. They moved to Korea soon after finishing their teaching course.

Korea
Simon and Martina moved to Korea to teach English. Around the same time, they started a youtube channel for their families called Eat Your Kimchi. After Eat Your Kimchi, Mukbang started to popularize during 2011. They also adopted Spudgy and Dr. Meemersworth.

2014 - 2017
With the Youtube channel Talk To Me in Korean, Simon and Martina opened the coffee shop, You Are Here Cafe.

In 2015, Simon and Martina closed the Eat Your Kimchi Studio and moved to Japan. They're continuing to make videos even if it isn't apart of the original Eat Your Kimchi. Briefly, they created the Eat Your Sushi segment. They also hosted a podcast on SBS Pop Asia called Eat Your Kimchi.

2018 - August 2020
Simon and Martina are living in Japan. They are constantly changing their videos to film to what they are most passionate about. They have released videos about food and their travels around the world.

Canada 2020 - present
August 16, 2020: Simon & Martina announced that they had moved back to Canada during the Covid 2019 Pandemic. They will still being making videos about things that inspire them and make them happy.

Martina wrote, "Simon has taken a step back from being on camera and he has gotten back into writing, something he truly loved doing while in university. He’s working on a book and has even been contemplating enrolling back into school."

Simon and Martina announced the newest member of their family Fudgy.

October 2020 Simon announced & reconfirmed in a video, "What happened to Simon " that he was taking a break from making videos. He's spending a full year on his own wellness project and taking classes again.

On February 11th, 2021, Simon and Martina | announced that they had decided to separate.

March 2021 Simon made a instagram livestream with Yogini Aliana, where he talked about his meditation journey, the book he's working on about his experiences with Youtube, and his involvement with the HLF charity. He's using his teaching degree to create curriculum for mindful social media usage. (Note* HLF is Higher Learning Foundation. It's NOT a cult.)

June 2021 Simon announced that he was moving back to London, Ontario in Canada. He adopted a new dog Petra and temporary taking car of the dog Roxy. He's working on a new project.

Simon has a new turtle named Gertrude. Simon announced that he's cohosting a new separate book club and podcast, 'A Life With Friends' which launched on June 22.

December 2021. Simon moved to Portugal and announced his own Youtube Channel, Simon's Book Club.

Simon's Book Club
"Heya. I've started a book club, where we'll read and discuss the latest books on psychology, the science of wellbeing, neuroscience, and consciousness. We'll be having monthly book club meetups as well, both online and in person.  And, I'll be posting videos here for each book that we discuss. "

Where we'll be reading and discussing books about psychology and science.


 * Official Instagram
 * Official Youtube
 * Patreon

A Life With Friends

 * Official Instagram
 * Official Patreon Website
 * Official Spotify
 * Official Youtube
 * Discord

"Hi. We’re Aliana & Simon, and we're working to create an inclusive online space where we can discuss, learn & practice meditation, mindfulness, & mental health. We're deeply connected to these topics, and often find ourselves obsessing over new practices, theories & ideas. Aliana is a certified meditation & yoga instructor, with Simon being a dedicated practitioner & knowledge seeker.

While both of us are avid readers & researchers on these topics, mindfulness also plays a huge role in our daily lives. Our intention with this project is to showcase how we discuss these topics with each other: naturally. This recorded experience was not designed with an audience in mind, but instead a documentation tool to explore & reflect on the conversations we already have together. This isn’t a show with hosts; this is just A Life With Friends."

Trivia

 * Simon played games on his Youtube channel, Drink Your Potions
 * Simon loves Ranch. (Simon recently stated in a podcast he does not eat Ranch as much anymore.)
 * He has two sleeve tattoos.
 * Fangurilla was portrayed by Simon on the Eat Your Kimchi channel