For someone without prior LCD experience I would recommend the AXE133 or AXE133Y. They are 'ready to go', easy to use, proven to work, and comes with full Rev-Ed support. In addition, they make a good foundation if then wishing to explore the use of parallel LCD's.
While parallel LCD's aren't that hard to use, once it's all understood, it still adds a critical sub-project to the project in hand, more learning, more work, more debugging, more frustrations and the project you want to complete is left at the mercy of the sub-project you did not have to embark upon. It's like building a kit car in order to learn to drive when there are better routes to that.
These days I'd recommend one of the AXE133 range even if the goal is learning how to drive parallel LCD's. Known to work hardware can be invaluable and that's easier to help with than something unknown. Plus support and help from within Rev-Ed is likely to be more forthcoming.