Bought a car (minivan actually)

Had to think very hard on which car we wanted to buy. Before leaving Singapore, we looked through numerous websites to see what kinds of cars were available. New, used and all sorts of financing options. We had to consider what kind of vehicle we should buy, keeping in mind that we are now missionaries. So nothing too showy in case we give the wrong idea. At the same time, we expect to have lots of visitors during our time here, so don't want to get a really small car and then have no space for people who come visit. As we have no maid now, we have to take the kids wherever we go, so we can't buy and small car and leave the kids at home when we pick people up at the airport. On the other hand, with the prices of gas (petrol) nowadays, we don't want to be driving a full sized 7 or 8 seater MPV when we only seat 4 most of the time. Also, we don't need to drive very much except to shopping and groceries and when the occasional visitors come or we go visit someone.

Wow, lots to think about. We wanted to buy a Japanese car, so that it has good resale value and is reliable. So we looked at a used Toyota Sienna (7 seater), which is a about US$24k new and a 4 year old is about $17-18k. Also looked at the Toyota Matrix, which is a 5 seater with a large cargo space for about $16k new (new model, so not many used ones available).
Finally looked at the Mazda 5, which is the newer model of the car we drive in Singapore, the Mazda Premacy. It's a 6 seater here, instead of 6+1 in Singapore (the +1 being a small seat). Went down to the car dealership on Jan 2, which was a very wet rainy day. Took a drive around and it seemed pretty good, since we were quite used to the car already, with some nice new touches, like a sliding back door, which is extremely helpful in loading and unloading Nathan in his car seat into the back seat without the cumbersome door getting in the way. With 6 seats, we can take up to another 2 passengers, but without too much luggage space. However, we thought it was a good compromise between a smaller car and a full sized MPV. Since this is a new model, there were no used ones available, but the pricing was not too bad. We bargained hard, especially trying to understand the financing. The thing about the US is that your credit history is very important. Almost everything you want to order long term is dependent on your credit history. From getting a credit card to subscribing for cable TV. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a credit history, so it was hard to find any financing. At the end, we got financing for 15.9%!! So we tried to put as big a downpayment as we could afford and then finance as little as possible. The good thing about the car financing here as opposed to Singapore's is that you are not locked in to the term of loan. That means that you can refinance the loan at any time. I asked around and the advice I got was to just take the loan for 6 months and then refinance it at hopefully lower rate when we get a better credit history. It's important to get some decent credit history here, even if you don't want to buy a lot of things.
So now we are driving a new Mazda 5 which we are very thankful for. Will upload pictures later.