Taipei - A Taiwan family spent more than 12 hours just to have a 10-minute glimpse of two giant pandas sent as a goodwill gift to the island from China, news reports said Friday.

The family of three from the southern county of Chiayi started out from their home Thursday night and was stuck on the island's packed freeways for seven hours before arriving at the Taipei Zoo before dawn on Friday, the United Evening News reported.

They then waited outside the zoo in a queue to get a number tag needed to view the pandas for 10 minutes upon the zoo's opening at 8 am.

The paper quoted the father, Lin Yi-min, as saying that they decided to start out so early because the zoo limited the number of panda viewers to 22,000 per day and his
6-year-old daughter wanted so much to see them.

Since the zoo put the pandas on display Monday, the first day of the Chinese New Year, more than 102,000 people have viewed the animals, the zoo said.

Zoo officials said they were considering reducing the daily quota to allow each visitor more time to see the two pandas after many visitors complained that they were being rushed through the Panda House, giving them less than a minute instead of 10 to see the bears.

The two pandas, named Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, were given by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Taiwan on December 23. Tuanyuan means Reunion in Chinese. (dpa)