My name is John Salvino and I live and work in Beijing. I moved here from Toronto in January, 2018, to start a new job, it's been such a great experience, I'm really enjoying my time here! For years I worked in corporate IT, but eventually I wanted to do something more creative so a few years ago 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, but for longer than just a couple of weeks, so in 2017 I decided I wanted to work here, so I could spend a long time and really immerse myself in the language and culture.

This site is a home base for my main interests, which include…

Photography

My main hobby is photography, and I enjoy blogging about it, here you will find my photography blog posts. My favourite type of photography is street photography, Toronto is a great city for that, so many diverse neighbourhoods!

Back in 2016 I visited Iceland, it was such a different experience from shooting in a big city, 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.

You can see my favourite photos that I've taken here, and you can also see some of my photography on my Unsplash and Instagram pages, feel free to follow me!

Music

I’ve loved music ever since I was a young kid, originally 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. It’s great living in a big city like Toronto, you have the chance to see many artists, both popular and not-so-popular.

I listen to and enjoy so many different genres of music, my music library is quite a mix, and definitely includes some guilty pleasures :)

You can find my music posts here.

Languages

I'm currently learning Mandarin, back in 2015 I wrote the HSK levels 1 and 2 exams. I was concentrating mainly on characters at first, but have recently started taking Mandarin classes to help improve my speaking and listening skills.

I also know quite a bit of Italian and French, I did a minor in Italian in University, and took French all through high school and more recently took a couple of years of night classes. Like with Mandarin, the main thing I need to improve are my speaking and listening skills.

You can reach me at my Contact page or through the social links at the bottom of the page!