A POP sensation in the Far East will finally realise her dream when she sings in front of 25,000 people in South Korea.

Rebecca Strachan, 27, of Aster Road, Kempshott, will represent the UK at the K-Pop World Festival in Changwon next month, after coming through a regional final in London this summer.

The festival allows winning individuals and teams from around the world to perform with their idols of Korean pop music.

For Rebecca, it represents the fulfilment of a long-held dream to perform in South Korea, after she started singing songs in Korean as a teenager and uploading them to the video-sharing website You- Tube.

As The Gazette reported in 2008, Rebecca’s homemade videos became very popular, receiving hundreds of thousands of views.

She said: “It has not really become real to me yet.

“I cannot believe it is happening after so long. I had almost given up on it. I entered the competition last year but did not win, and I wasn’t sure about applying this year, and only did it right on the day of the deadline.”

Rebecca added: “I am pretty nervous and it is obviously a much, much bigger audience than anything I have performed to in the past.

“I am an amateur and I do this for fun. People I look up to will be there and I will perform on the same stage as them.”

Rebecca’s interest in Korean pop music began ten years ago when she liked a song she heard on the soundtrack to the Final Fantasy X computer game.

After her success on YouTube, a Korean record label and a social media website offered to fly her to the capital Seoul to sing a few songs, but the chance fell away and she decided to go to university.

More recently, she toured China as a solo singer and had success in UK singing competitions.

Rebecca will head to South Korea, her second visit to the country, on October 23, and will have a week of cultural excursions in Changwon before the festival on October 30.

She will compete against acts chosen from all over the world.

Among the Korean pop acts scheduled to perform are solo singer Ailee and boyband SHINee.