- LA's most Instagramable neighborhood.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
I do travel travel guides that are fun,
informative and entertaining.
This video, it's part of my series on Los Angeles.
If you wanna see more videos on LA,
you'll find links in the description below,
or at the end of this video.
But in this video, I'm gonna be showing you around
the Melrose and West Hollywood districts.
These districts, they were basically,
I shouldn't say, created, but they've become
places to come and take those great Instagram selfies.
And you'll say, "Chris, why are you standing
"in front of a pink wall?"
Well, because pink is the color of Instagram.
Did you not know that?
And if you don't believe me, all you have to do
is paint a wall pink and take a look at this.
Tons of people come to take Instagram selfies
right in front of this wall.
If you wanna find this place, this is called Paul Smith,
it's right on Melrose Avenue and Harper.
So join me as we explore the rest of this neighborhood.
We'll be seeing a lot of pink.
And really this pink wall is a great use
for otherwise a pretty boring parking lot.
And the murals, there are ton of them around here.
Just right across the street
from that pink wall is this one.
A yellow mural, totally my color.
It says Bob heart Abishola.
Who do you heart?
Just kitty-corner from Paul Smith,
The Electric Box is painted really fancy.
You can have a lot of fun taking selfies here,
where you get this in the foreground,
and that in the background.
If you're a coffee shop or tea shop in this neighborhood,
you definitely have to be Instagramable.
Alfred Coffee and Tea, they have two locations,
but look at this, they got a little sign,
it says, "I love you so matcha!"
And you can take your picture right there.
And do you wonder what we ordered?
Of course we ordered the matcha.
Because we're very suggestible,
and now we have that Instagram picture.
Oh, and of course, it helps to have neon signs
with witty sayings, but before there was neon,
there's also, "But first, there's coffee."
If you've seen that on T-shirts or signs,
well, this is where it came from.
And of course they've got a hashtag you should use
when you're posting your Instagram pictures,
and you know what, I've got a hashtag too.
If you like this video, please share it and please tag
this super awesome hashtag, right here.
And by the way, the Alfred Tea and Coffee,
they're on a very famous street.
And it's not Melrose Avenue, where I'm showing you
most of the things, it's Melrose Place,
I guarantee you've heard of it.
There was a famous show on Melrose Place
and the Alfred Coffee's at the intersection
of Melrose Place and Alfred Street.
Pretty easy to find.
By the way, I wasn't kidding.
There are hashtags in this neighborhood, everywhere.
Hashtag selfie!
You can celebrate pride with rainbows and butterflies.
Curious where this is?
Well, in the window of this store,
they've actually got a thing to tell you,
'cause they are expecting that you'll post on Instagram,
the artist, the IG, the location tag,
and some hashtags to use.
In addition to pink walls, you'll even find living walls.
This is pretty cool.
All right, I'll see you on the rest of the walk.
Wait, that was the wrong way.
This way.
Melrose Avenue has lots of funky shops and galleries,
so explore those while you're exploring,
but bring you rent check or your Amex platinum card,
they're expensive.
Curious the hours?
This one by appointment only.
Do you know what that means?
Really expensive.
Even the places that aren't open yet,
Sweet Jesus look really good, and Instagramable.
Exploring these murals might make you contemplate
our reality, are we alone?
I don't know.
We might not be,
at the intersection of Melrose and Laurel,
you'll find four murals, basically on every corner.
Here, you'll find one that says,
"Made In LA," though it's been graffitied to add,
"Immigrants Made LA."
Across the street from the "Made In LA" sign,
you can stand under this
and think some other deep thoughts.
And even places that aren't Instagram spots become one,
'cause everybody is walking around with a camera.
If you're looking for something original to do,
stop by Duff's Cake Mix.
I've never done this here, but it's a do-it-yourself
cake decorating place.
You pick a cake, you pick some decorations,
they've got all supplies, you can decorate it yourself.
They've got samples of cakes you can make,
and even instructions on how to make them.
Pretty interesting concept.
Wanna do something a little more fluffy
and cuddly than cakes?
Check out the Cat Cafe and Kitten Lounge,
pet cats and kittens while you drink some drinks.
For lunch, we hopped over to the West Hollywood district
for Ippudo, we were here for the grand opening weekend
of Ippudo, famous Japanese ramen chain.
Their first location in the US was in New York City.
This is their second location in LA,
if you like ramen, you can give this a try.
Just I will say, make sure to bring your Amex platinum card.
For two people, it was about $50.
We got their bowl of tonkotsu ramen,
and we got some takoyaki, and they're also famous
for their pork buns.
Pretty good, and you know, most things in this neighborhood
are gonna be pretty expensive.
Just a couple of logistics notes
about coming to this neighborhood.
First of all, parking.
There's a lot of street parking
and there's a lot of parking meters.
Make sure you pay the parking meters.
They are enforced seven days a week,
Monday through Sunday, like 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Monday through Saturday, so morning till late.
They take credit cards, which is pretty nice.
You should also pay attention to a lot of these signs,
right up here, take a look at this.
It'll tell you when you can and can't park.
Be careful about parking in the residential neighborhoods
because some of them are no parking
to anybody unless you have a residential permit.
So now we're gonna go from the "Made In LA" wall,
to the angel wings wall.
How do we get there?
Well a great part, these things,
they're all on Google maps. If you can take a look at this,
we're right here at the "Made In LA" wall,
and we're going to the angel wings wall.
All you gotta do is search.
Even the sidewalks have things for you to take pictures of.
Maybe it's hard to take a selfie with this one,
but here's a neat hummingbird.
This phone booth has been turned into a pink and blue
piece of artwork.
Do you think it works?
Shall we make a phone call?
(he gasps) I'm so not gonna touch that.
This store on the way to the angel wings
just has a neat mural.
And look, you walk in the door,
right underneath that guy's legs.
I found the angel wings.
This one, really long line to take pictures.
And those angel wings mark the entrance
to an interesting swap meet.
It's like an upscale designer swap meet,
with even more murals behind it.
All underneath a billboard.
So to get dinner after walking around Melrose Avenue,
we stopped at the Beverly Center,
it's just a half mile from the main part of Melrose,
and we stopped at Marugame Udon,
it's on the ground floor.
There's a lot of other cheap eats around Beverly Center.
Why this place?
Well, behind me, it's kind of like self-serve udon.
You start at the beginning, you pick up a tray,
you tell 'em what udon you want, and then you can pick
up all the tempura that you want,
it's basically priced by the piece,
like the shrimp's a buck 80, this is a broccoli tempura.
I've got the number one bestseller,
this one has beef, egg and noodles,
and then OC Girl over here, she's got a different type
of udon that comes in this really neat jar,
and make sure you get a hold of their soft
boiled eggs to go with it.
Pretty delicious udon and these are some long noodles,
I have to say.
And the good news is, after dinner,
at the Beverly Center at Marugame Udon,
we found some more angel wings,
right here at the intersection of Third and Orlando,
across the street from Magnolia Bakery,
by the way, lots of horns around here.
But you know what I like best about the Melrose district?
People actually walk around here.
I'm sure you've heard the song, "Nobody walks in LA,"
and that's true for lots of LA,
but the Melrose district, there's lots of people walking
around, 'cause they're taking really neat selfie pictures
with all of these murals.
So, if your travels bring you to LA,
make sure to check out the Melrose district.
If you are coming to LA, you might enjoy checking out
some of my other videos from Los Angeles.
You can click on the screen in the upper left
or right to watch them.
You'll also find links in the description below
to my entire Los Angeles series.
Well, as usual, I won't say goodbye,
'cause I'll see you in one of those videos.