Since the game is so new, and has such a huge following instantly(much more than they expected), there's entirely too many bugs and things not working as intended still, but they have in the works some updates that will involve battling your friends, and even trading Pokémon with others. Although that could be Months away at best probably.
As for boring, well when it comes to catching Pokémon, throwing a ball at them is all there is. But right now you can find gyms and battle against them if you are level 5 or higher.
Honestly it's best to just go out a couple hours each day(or whatever you can do) where a hot spot of Pokémon are(Big busy cities usually, and yes that makes no sense why wild animals would be there lol) and catch Everything, then use a lucky egg(x2 experience bonus for 30 mins) to evolve the cheapest candy costing ones(Pidgey, Rattata, Zubat, and Weddle, which are all Abundant Everywhere) to get your level as high as possible as soon as possible, then once you're level 10 or more you can worry about evolving and powering up other Pokémon to fight with.
Because the higher your level the higher the CP(Combat Power) Pokémon you can find, meaning less used/wasted candy to power them to their fullest. You can't even find the highest level CP of Pokémon until you're Level 30, so the beginning of the game just to learn the feel for it, and catch whatever ya can, until your high enough to create high level battlers. Just make sure to "transfer" all your above mentioned Pokémon into candy(Keeping only the ones needed to evolve, you'll have to do the math, # of candy divided by cost of evolution cost) so your pokebag isn't full of low level junk Pokémon.
Make sure to hit Every pokestop to get as many free pokeballs as you can, so you don't have to buy them from the shop.
Save, and then use, your Lucky eggs for when your pokebag is full of Pokémon to evolve, because that's the best time to get that x2 experience bonus.
The green leaves mean Pokémon are there, but currently that mechanic along with the tracking system at the bottom right are broken!
Meaning they don't track properly, and the leaves don't always mean Pokémon are there like they're supposed too!
The purple leaves are lures on pokestops that bring more Pokémon into the area for all trainers to see and go for. They each see their own, with their own CP values that go according to your trainer level, like all Pokemon in the game are.
A tip for when using an incense, Walk Around! When your sitting in one place you get 1 Pokémon about every 5 mins, but the more you walk the more you get, up too 1 per min actually, so it really makes a difference!!!
There are plenty of reddit threads with links to websites that have the best places to find certain pokemon, some even keep track of Nests, which are the best places in the game to find that certain Pokemon you want so bad!
Well there's a few tips/info I hope they helped
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, you can stand to wait until level 25 to 30 that's best! All those candies are going to be needed once you get to level 30 when the Pokémon you find are the highest they can be instead of the small fries you find now! Hope that tip helped!