Celebrating 13th Birthday in Healthy Ways at Four Seasons Hotel Sydney
March 03, 2014

Can a new teenager have a blast in a healthy way celebrating her 13th birthday? Yes, indeed and that is exactly what we did at Four Seasons Hotel Sydney!
Her birthday was in the fall, but thanks to our fast travel on 3 continents these last few months, we are just getting this up now.
BIRTHDAYS AND TRAVEL
Since we have been traveling the world non-stop for the last 8 years, celebrating birthdays are a little different for our trilingual daughter.

CELEBRATING BIRTHDAYS ABROAD
It started when we began when she was 5 as it helped her identify exactly what "world travel" was by planning her 6th birthday in Paris before we left. Who knew we were starting a trend?
She celebrated her 7th birthday in Salzburg, her 8th birthday in Stockholm, her 9th birthday in London, her 10th birthday in Barcelona, with her Spanish speaking best friend, her 11th birthday at Harry Potter's Wizarding World, and her 12th in Penang, Malaysia with her Mandarin speaking friends.

CELEBRATING IN SYDNEY
So her 13th birthday in Sydney made it the 9th country and 4th continent that she has celebrated a birthday on our open ended world tour!
We couldn't have picked a better place for this rite of passage as she becomes a teenager. We were completely beguiled from the moment we saw the breathtaking views from our room of the stunning Sydney harbor.

GLUTEN-FREE, GRAIN-FREE
The Concierge, Chefs as well as the Director of Public Relations Hansni Bhagani went out of their way to make this first teen birthday super memorable. Despite our challenges of special dietary issues for health reasons, FS Sydney served us the most delicious paleo food and even a scrumptious chocolate cake that was gluten and grain free!

WORLD'S HEALTHIEST INSTRUMENT IS ABORIGINAL
Our stay started with a bang...or rather a drone from Australia's national musical instrument made by the Aboriginal people called a didgeridoo which has been a healing tool for at least 40,000 years and many call the healthiest musical instrument in the world.
Our teen Mozart is a musician, singer and prolific songwriter, so they arranged some didgeridoo lessons in our gorgeous suite from "Gifts at the Quay" and she was delighted.

WHAT IS A DIDGERIDOO?
Until our first trip to Australia a few years ago, I had never heard of a didgeridoo, but recently it was recommended to us by Carol Vander Stoep because there is no other instrument as potent for health ( based on scientific studies) and it is almost identical to the Buteyko breathing technique similar to the meditation breathing achieved by yoga masters.

BUYING A DIDGERIDOO
We enjoyed the lesson and didgeridoo jam sesson so much, that we decided to get our own to add to our travel lifestyle ( along with our piano, violin and guitar that our kiddo plays around the world) and will be writing more about that.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN SYDNEY
Mozart also has a passion for art so loved visiting the nearby Museum of Contemporary Art, feeding seagulls near the Circular Quay, and wandering around this enchanting historic Sydney city center area called "The Rocks".



EXPLORING SYDNEY
We took a ferry ride to Manly Beach to visit local friends and caught a spectacular sunset of Sydney from the natural bushlands of North Head Sanctuary area.

LUXURY LOVING TEEN
This new teen joyously tried out the sauna ,steam room, Jacuzzi and felt like a glamorous model as she enjoyed lolling about the roof pool area reading Vogue and snacking. Still mostly kid, we watched her gleefully jump and do cannon balls into the pool.


FIREWORKS IN SYDNEY
We knew our travel baby's teen years were off to an auspicious start when the night of her birthday we watched fireworks going off in Sydney while laying in our beds ( much to our surprise)!

Have you ever celebrated a birthday abroad or while traveling?
Can a new teenager have a blast in a healthy way celebrating her 13th birthday? Yes, indeed and that is exactly what we did at Four Seasons Hotel Sydney!
Her birthday was in the fall, but thanks to our fast travel on 3 continents these last few months, we are just getting this up now.
BIRTHDAYS AND TRAVEL
Since we have been traveling the world non-stop for the last 8 years, celebrating birthdays are a little different for our trilingual daughter.
CELEBRATING BIRTHDAYS ABROAD
It started when we began when she was 5 as it helped her identify exactly what "world travel" was by planning her 6th birthday in Paris before we left. Who knew we were starting a trend?
She celebrated her 7th birthday in Salzburg, her 8th birthday in Stockholm, her 9th birthday in London, her 10th birthday in Barcelona, with her Spanish speaking best friend, her 11th birthday at Harry Potter's Wizarding World, and her 12th in Penang, Malaysia with her Mandarin speaking friends.
CELEBRATING IN SYDNEY
So her 13th birthday in Sydney made it the 9th country and 4th continent that she has celebrated a birthday on our open ended world tour!
We couldn't have picked a better place for this rite of passage as she becomes a teenager. We were completely beguiled from the moment we saw the breathtaking views from our room of the stunning Sydney harbor.
GLUTEN-FREE, GRAIN-FREE
The Concierge, Chefs as well as the Director of Public Relations Hansni Bhagani went out of their way to make this first teen birthday super memorable. Despite our challenges of special dietary issues for health reasons, FS Sydney served us the most delicious paleo food and even a scrumptious chocolate cake that was gluten and grain free!
WORLD'S HEALTHIEST INSTRUMENT IS ABORIGINAL
Our stay started with a bang...or rather a drone from Australia's national musical instrument made by the Aboriginal people called a didgeridoo which has been a healing tool for at least 40,000 years and many call the healthiest musical instrument in the world.
Our teen Mozart is a musician, singer and prolific songwriter, so they arranged some didgeridoo lessons in our gorgeous suite from "Gifts at the Quay" and she was delighted.
WHAT IS A DIDGERIDOO?
Until our first trip to Australia a few years ago, I had never heard of a didgeridoo, but recently it was recommended to us by Carol Vander Stoep because there is no other instrument as potent for health ( based on scientific studies) and it is almost identical to the Buteyko breathing technique similar to the meditation breathing achieved by yoga masters.
BUYING A DIDGERIDOO
We enjoyed the lesson and didgeridoo jam sesson so much, that we decided to get our own to add to our travel lifestyle ( along with our piano, violin and guitar that our kiddo plays around the world) and will be writing more about that.
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN SYDNEY
Mozart also has a passion for art so loved visiting the nearby Museum of Contemporary Art, feeding seagulls near the Circular Quay, and wandering around this enchanting historic Sydney city center area called "The Rocks".
EXPLORING SYDNEY
We took a ferry ride to Manly Beach to visit local friends and caught a spectacular sunset of Sydney from the natural bushlands of North Head Sanctuary area.
LUXURY LOVING TEEN
This new teen joyously tried out the sauna ,steam room, Jacuzzi and felt like a glamorous model as she enjoyed lolling about the roof pool area reading Vogue and snacking. Still mostly kid, we watched her gleefully jump and do cannon balls into the pool.
FIREWORKS IN SYDNEY
We knew our travel baby's teen years were off to an auspicious start when the night of her birthday we watched fireworks going off in Sydney while laying in our beds ( much to our surprise)!
Have you ever celebrated a birthday abroad or while traveling?
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13? Wow, she is growing up so quickly!
Although I don't comment, I have enjoyed following your family around the world.
Am doing the Paleo thing (well 85%) and gluten-free if I do eat any grains. Have enjoyed your tips!
Posted by: girasoli | March 06, 2014 at 06:23 PM
Oooh! Forgot to add, Happy Happy Birthday Mozart!!
Posted by: girasoli | March 06, 2014 at 06:23 PM
Thanks so much Girasoli, always wonderful to hear from you!
It is hard to believe my baby is 13 and now when we look back at the early pictures of our travels, it seems amazing that she was so little then. ;)
Time flies when you are having fun...nothing like a growing kid to let you see how fast it is going. LOL
More Paleo/GAPS/Grain-free tips and recipes coming! It is a whole new world doing it here in the States...sooo much more available...though I do miss a few super cheap things from Asia.
We can get great pastured chicken livers here for cheap..so I have been making nutrient dense delicious pates and paleo chili that I will be writing about soon... and more. ;)
My beloveds don't like liver..but this way I have them eating it regularly, loving it, and keeping us on a low budget! ;)
Posted by: Jeanne @soultravelers3 | March 06, 2014 at 06:56 PM
Yum! I love chicken livers!
Posted by: girasoli | March 07, 2014 at 06:36 PM
I do too girasoli and they are so good for you, BUT one must eat them from well raised pastured chickens who are not fed grains, soy or given antibiotics etc, so that was challenging in Asia. We found good pastured chickens but they threw away the livers!
Any way now we can have a lot and saves us from buying liver pills like we had to do in Asia.
Mozart does not like liver, so I had to get creative to make her love it! ;)
I also have some paleo dessert recipes for cookies and brownies that Mozart made for Christmas that were yummy and I learned to fry cookies here as we have no oven. ;)
Thanks again for commenting as blogging can be a bit lonely, never knowing who is reading or caring what one writes. ;)
Posted by: Jeanne @soultravelers3 | March 08, 2014 at 07:15 AM
I care too Jeanne! Still following your adventures with great interest. Hope we get to meet if you do come to France... happy belated 13th To Mozart (loved the pictures from the singing post), hope your health continues to improve. Take care + thanks for sharing!
Posted by: Gabrielle | March 16, 2014 at 10:34 AM
Aw,thanks so much Gabrielle! So happy to hear that. Waving back to you in France and hope we do get to meet you when we are back exploring in Europe!
Posted by: Jeanne @soultravelers3 | March 17, 2014 at 10:16 AM