Getting gritty with it

As I was cycling to school this morning (very late I might add- the one bonus of school in the spring holidays with nothing to do, is that you can turn up late and no-one seems to care!); I noticed something that had fallen over, or more likely, had been crashed into. In certain places along Japanese roads, there are grit containers for the winter when the roads and pavements are covered in snow. Anyway, following the mild winter, the container seemed fairly full - or was until it toppled over. But what I noticed was what the grit had a striking resemblance to. Now I know that Japanese eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner; snack on rice crackers; fatten up on rice cakes; drink rice wine and other rice drinks, but it came as a surprise that the stuff they grit their roads with, bears a canny resemblance to the same white stuff...