About
1981 How It Started // 2018 Beijing // 2024 Norway
My name is John Salvino and I live and work in Beijing. I moved here from Toronto in January of 2018 to start a new job, it’s been such a great experience, I’m really enjoying my time here!
As part of my first job here, I was lucky to be able to travel around China and do photography! So far I’ve been to 19 cities in mainland China: Beijing, Shenyang, Qingdao, Chongqing, Hohhot, Nanjing, Hefei, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Xi’an, Yangshuo, Guilin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Nanning, with hopefully many more to come. I’ve also managed to visit Hong Kong, Macau, and Taipei.
During Spring Festival a few years ago, I spent two weeks traveling through Vietnam, and then visited Thailand later in the year.
And more recently, last summer (2023), I visited Tokyo and Amsterdam. I'm excited to share some of my photos from those trips!
This summer, in 2024, I visited Norway and Austria.
For many years I worked in corporate IT, but eventually I wanted to do something more creative, so in 2015 I left my corporate job and started doing freelance web development, with the intention of travelling more often. I had wanted to see China for years, for longer than just a couple of weeks, so in 2017 I decided that working here would be the best way to spend a long time here and really immerse myself in the language and culture.
It was the best decision I could have made!
So what do I write about here?
I know this isn't the best way to entice you to read my blog, but I guess I should start by saying that I am pretty bad at writing! I often have so many things in my head that I want to say but I don't know how to make them into interesting words. But I'm trying to improve, which is why I want to share more often here!
Photography
Well, I mainly started this blog to help share my love of photography.
If you look through my photos, you’ll see that I mainly like shooting cities and architecture, with a little bit of landscape mixed in. Living in Asia is amazing for all three types!
But no matter what type of photo I take, I always try to show the world in a different way, from a different perspective.
Back in 2016 I visited Iceland, it was such a different experience from shooting in a big city. There were so many incredible landscape photography opportunities there, here are some photos I took while I was there. It really helped fuel my desire to do more travel photography.
Here you can read my articles about photography.
I also like sharing my photos on Glass and Instagram.
Oh, and if you are curious about what camera brand I use...well, I use Olympus!
Last year, I upgraded to the Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mark III. You can see and read about the rest of my gear here.
Music
I’ve loved music ever since I was a child, firstly hearing my parents listening to 8-tracks on their awesome stereo, then using my allowance to purchase 45s, then albums, cassettes, CDs, MP3s, and now to streaming. My music tastes vary so much, there’s no point in even listing them here!
As any music fan will tell you, there’s just nothing like listening to an incredible song. I’m often a different person when I’m listening to a great song. The right song can make me feel more confident about myself. Act in ways I might not normally act.
On this blog I like to share my thoughts about how music makes me feel, why I like certain songs or bands, and how I interpret the music and/or lyrics. It isn’t intended to be about academic reviews or anything, just straight up personal thoughts about the music.
You will find a few different types of posts. Some are longer form write-ups about songs that have particular meaning to me. Others are short write-ups where I feel like mentioning a song that I really like, just to give some exposure to bands or songs you may not have known about. And sometimes I just write about general music-related topics, that may only have meaning to me personally.
Here you can read my articles about music.
John Salvino
John Salvino
Are you using Glass, the new photo-sharing app? I'm trying it out!