Travel Advice (Please)

I wanted to go to Japan. Check. Tokyo, naga-naga-Nagasaki, Fukuoka... soon to be Kagoshima, Shimane, and Kobe. I wanted to go to Kyoto, but, first off, no tours of Nintendo world HQ. Unfortunately I'm a big enough nerd to make a big trip just to get a tour of the Nintendo building, but, fortunately, not a big enough nerd just to go get pictures of the outside of the building. I've seen pictures, and am not impressed. Then, I don't know what else to do, have no one to inspire me, and unsurprisingly, find a Nintendo DS (Japanese-English dictionary!) a better, more practical investiment than a Nintendo building picture.
So, I didn't go to Kyoto, money in the bank... time on my hands at work, time to think about where I should go? Mt. Fuji? The big Japanese volcano? If I want Japanese nature, I'll go up into the mountains, or sit by the ocean, both of which are less than a mile's walk from my apartment.
So I start thinking bigger. I haven't been around the world yet, the other half, I mean, and I could do that, go the slightly longer way around... stopping by China, or South Africa, or Rome, or Ireland... or all of them. But, uh, that'd be expensive... and thus a bit stressful. "OK, gotta take in all the internationalness and sights I can in order to make the money worth it." Hectic, jetlagged, overfull schedule would be dangerous to my mental and financial health, especially in an only generally, vaguely interesting country where I miss an international flight.
Speaking of which, what sights would I see? The Great Wall? It's a big... wall. Plus, I've been to Taiwan, and while it's not absolutely China, it's close enough for at least a year or two. I hear South Africa's got, you know, nature, and my South African friend says Johannesburg's a big, crazy city, with drugs and cows... but there's nothing specific I want to see. I've seen the big world sites on TV enough times, and I'm not exactly the kind of person who has to see it to believe it. Maybe my imagination's too good for my own good.
The first time I saw the ocean in Massachusetts, I got in the water a little bit, just to say I did it, looked all the way to the horizon, to the left and the right. "Yep, it goes all the way to the horizion, just like I thought, like they said on the TV. ...And it's cold and windy, like some weather I don't like." Then I left, with my best friend, to check out Boston a little.
And Boston was alright... because I was with a friend. Taipei (Taiwan) was cool, too, because I stayed with a friend.
Here's the moral of the story: Friends are great. In addition to the sappy things that friends provide that Mastercard can't give you, friends can also provide Mastercard-like functions, such as supplying a bed to sleep in and tour guidance, all for free.
I lived in Kansas, which is rugged farmer and cowboy country to non-locals, and the middle of American nowhere to locals... and I'm a local, and there are good times to be had in Kansas, simple fun, just hanging out... for real cheap, because Kansas is cheap and simple, steady and boring awesome... though what's with all the Democrats getting elected lately? Seriously.
And now I live in Nagasaki, which is nuked internationalism to non-locals, and the outer fringes of nowhere to locals. That is, the local Japanese think so; I'm pretty sure that overdeveloped Japan has no idea of what the boonies really look like. Thoughs, frozen-big-Japanese-north-
living Alex?
Heck, I don't even think that I know what the real boonies looks like. Maybe I'd find out if I went to Africa... the true middle of nowhere should be easily accessible to a tourist, right?
Anyway, Nagasaki isn't backwoods, even though it has backwoods. It's scrunched up between the ocean and the tree-full mountains, with some Catholic and nuked history behind it, and ambitions for peace and prosperity in the future. And when friends seem far away or non-existent, it sucks. If that's true in Kansas and Nagasaki, it must be true everywhere else, huh?
Let's be clear: I'd take a free trip around the world straight up. I'd go for a few sights, a challenge, or a cool job. I'd definitely go for the right girl. I'd even go for an interesting class. I don't want to go merely for a few pictures that I would find infinitely cheaper and better photographed online. Friends? If I can make friends in Kansas and Nagasaki, then I can make them anywhere in the world, in the right situation. But I don't need to go everywhere in the world once to make friends I'd only ever see once. If I want to make international friends, I'll wait a few days here, do it on the cheap, and see them some weekend, text-messaging them in the meantime.
So this is Kyle in disillusioned, world-weary international citizen mode. In order to refresh his memory of what it's like in his particular part of the other half of the world, before he decides where to go or stay after he drops his current English teaching job in less than a year and a half, Kyle thinks he needs, starting around July 20, a 2-week trip back to Kansas (he won't call it "home" because he's understood "You Can't Go Home Again" since college, even though he never read the book, silly English major). Kyle also sometimes writes about himself in the third person.
But I'm wary of the lameness of paying a 10 Benjamins (or a grand, or one hundred thousand yen), for a ticket to a place where even the surprises should be pretty boring (oh! take that, Kansas). So, I start thinking, it might cost about the same to come back via LA or NYC, 2 cities that I'd really like to see (or say I've seen), but I don't know that even spending a day or two in one... seeing Hollywood or the Statue of Liberty, would be worth it.
Any advice, friends? Are any of you awesome enough to be wanting to serve non-Mastercard and/or Mastercard-like functions in either city, thus helping me make my decision one way or another?
Hmmm... while I'm waiting, maybe I could go Japan to NYC, with a day or two there for the Statue, Times Square and Ground Zero, like 9 days in Kansas, enough to get nice and really bored... THEN Los Angeles for a day, just to see if I like the atmosphere (thinking about a future doing Japan-US relations from the US mainland in the practical and acclaimed state of California) before coming back to the daily grind of alternately being bored and giving kids the courage and creativity to say "I like strawberry!" over and over and over again.
And let's not forget Rome and going around the world. If you're going to be in Rome for, say, the week after Christmas this year, Heather, we might start talking about you being "the right girl," by which I mean the one who gives free Sistene Chapel/St. Peter's Square/Coliseum tour guidance and cheap floorspace to sleep on.
What do you think? That I have a lot to complain about? No, not much to complain about, so I gotta make the most of what I got. Once I stop thinking, I'm really very happy.